K-State Research and Extension

Q: I would like to can soups for this winter. Is that an acceptable practice?
A: Vegetable, dried bean or pea, meat, poultry, or seafood soups can be canned. Be sure to use ONLY ingredients that are recommended for canning. Do not add noodles or other pasta, rice, flour, cream, milk or other thickening agents to home canned soups. If additional ingredients or thickening is desired, those variations should be made when the jar is opened for serving. If dried beans or peas are used, they must be fully rehydrated first. For each cup of dried beans or peas add 3 cups of water, boil 2 minutes, remove from heat, soak 1 hour, heat to boiling, drain.
Each vegetable should be selected, washed, prepared and cooked as described for a ‘hot pack.’ Meats recommended for canning should be covered with water and cooked until tender, then cooled and the bones removed. Next, combine all solid ingredients with hot water, tomatoes or broth, bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Salt can be added to taste, if desired. Do not fully cook the soup before filling jars; the canning process completes the cooking at the same time it eliminates harmful microorganisms.
Jars should only be filled halfway with the mixture of solids. The rest of the jar is filled with the hot liquid leaving 1-inch headspace.
Vegetable-based soups are usually mixtures of low-acid ingredients and they need to be pressure canned. Water bath canning is NOT sufficient for canning soups. The extra heat in pressure canning is needed to destroy the spores of Clostridium botulinum (the microorganism that causes Botulism).
Process the jars in a pressure canner according to instructions in the table relevant to your altitude, pressure canner type and jar size. Please see the National Center for Home Food Preservation’s publication on soups at http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_04/soups.html for more information and specific processing times.