HOW TO CAN POTATOES

I grew up canning food from our garden with my mom and grandmother. Such good
memories and valuable lessons learned from them. I do so miss both of those sweet,
sweet ladies.

When our garden does not produce enough taters I buy extra 10 pound bags of
potatoes and can them. It makes it fast and easy at meal time. On days I spent
outside working all day I can open a jar of potatoes add some butter and seasoning
to go with the meal. So, so good!

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My video on How To Can Potatoes.

Preparation of Potatoes

Wash the potatoes and peel off skins. Wash them again. Leave small potatoes whole and quarter larger potatoes or cut into uniform cubes. Place in a stainless steel pot or bowl of cold water after cutting to prevent browning. If you’re going to hot-pack them, go ahead and put them in a large pot so you don’t have to switch them to something else before boiling them.

You need 2-3 pounds of potatoes for each quart/liter jar that you can. That’s about 15 medium sized potatoes…or several dozen tiny ones. I start by peeling the taters and putting in a bowl of cold water. Next I cubed my taters.

Canning Potatoes

Potatoes, like many other vegetables, can be hot- or raw-packed. The process for canning potatoes with raw- and hot-pack methods is not all that different and both require a pressure canner because of the low acidity of potatoes. In general, the hot-pack method is recommended because the vegetables will be more pliable and you can get more vegetables packed into each jars But when you’re doing many, many jars of them you decide that the raw-pack method will do just fine. Just keep in mind that when you raw pack, the vegetables may shrink or soften and the jar may not end up as full as you initially intended. You may also end up with a much lower water level in the jars because the potatoes absorb it, but this is no cause for concern. And the white sediment in the bottom of some of the jars? That’s just starch from the potatoes–absolutely harmless.
Always wash and clean your jars and lids before using them and keep them warm in a pot of boiling water or in the oven until you are ready to pack them.
To hot-pack potatoes, place potatoes in a large pot and cover with water (if you didn’t do this already after washing them). Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil small cubes for 2 minutes and small whole potatoes or quartered potatoes for 10 minutes, until heated through but not soft. Drain, discarding cooking liquid. Pack hot potatoes into hot jars, leaving 1 inch head-space, and pressure can as instructed below.
To raw-pack potatoes, firmly pack cleaned potatoes into hot jars, leaving 1 inch head-space, and proceed as follows for pressure canning.
To pressure can potatoes:

1. First add 1 teaspoon of salt to quart/liter jars or 1/2 teaspoon salt to pint jars.
2. Ladle boiling water over potatoes, still leaving 1 inch head-space. Remove air
3. bubbles and adjust head-space if necessary by adding more hot water. Put a lid
4. on the jar and secure it.
5. Place jars in the pressure canner. Adjust water level, lock lid and bring to a boil
6. over medium-high heat. Vent steam for 10 minutes, then close the vent.
7. Continue heating to achieve 10 lbs. pressure and maintain pressure to process.
8. Pint jars require 35 minutes and quart (1 L) jars 40 minutes. (Consult your
9. pressure canner manual if you have a dial-gauge canner or if you’re canning at
10. higher altitudes.)
11. Turn off the heat and let the pressure return to zero naturally. Wait 2 minutes
12. longer, then open the vent. Now you can remove the canner lid. Wait another 10
13. minutes, then remove the jars, let them cool and store in a cool, dark place.

We will use them for mashed potatoes when we have no fresh taters at home, and they are also fantastic as home fries for breakfast or roasted potatoes with a little onion, bacon, salt & pepper. I used to make my home fries with potatoes I’d pre-cooked in the microwave, but this route is even faster because the potatoes are already cooked due to being canned in the pressure cooker.
If you’d like to learn more about canning, get yourself a copy of the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It’s got over 400 recipes to help you use up all sorts of goodies from your garden and orchard. Pick up a copy at Amazon.com.

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Blessings,
​Margarita & Stace