30 Canning Recipes You Can Do in a Water Bath

Canning is both a rewarding and fun pastime and a great way to minimize food waste while stocking your pantry with delicious, easy-to-prepare ingredients and meals. But if you aren’t already an experienced canner, it can be a little intimidating: there’s definitely a science to the process…

Figuring out whether you want to use a pressure canner or water bath canner, and when, is a subject unto itself. For newbies, water bath canning is the way to go even though it’s a little more limited than pressure canning.

That said, there are still tons of delicious recipes you can make today in a water bath. Keep reading, and I’ll tell you about 30 such recipes, perfect for canning veterans and newbies alike.

One quick note: you should always follow canning recipes exactly when it comes to ingredient amounts, and especially for salsa. Adding extra onions or peppers can mess up the acid ratio and prevent it from processing properly! Now’s not the time to improvise…

Classic Applesauce

This lunch box staple might be boring and bland if you’re eating the jarred stuff that you get from the grocery store, but you don’t know what you’re missing out on if you haven’t had homemade.

Home-canned applesauce is sweet, juicy, and almost indefinably delectable. It makes a great side dish for summer and fall meals, and it’s also an awesome ingredient in baked goods and sauces.

You can easily make the best applesauce you’ll ever try with this recipe, and best of all, it will only take you a couple of hours from start to finish.

Apple Butter

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of eating a big, home-cooked breakfast with my grandparents. A fixture at our family breakfast table was apple butter.

Smooth, sweet, slightly spicy, and almost savory in its richness, this stuff makes everything better. Scraped over toast or slathered on an English muffin – my favorite! – it’s a great way to break out of the usual butter-and-jam routine.

Some apple butter recipes get a bad rap as overly complicated or lacking in flavor, but this version suffers from neither. It’s easy to make, super good, and stores for a long time!

Pears

Home-canned fruit is the domain of the water bath canner…

That’s because the acidity of most types makes it viable for water canning, and the gentler cooking procedure produces a superior finished product compared to pressure canning. If you need evidence, look no further than pears.

Canned pears are tender and tasty, and very easy to prepare by whipping up some simple syrup. I love having a big stash of canned pears for snacking, easy sides, and desserts.

Apricots

Perfectly fresh home-canned apricots are so good they’re almost decadent: intensely sweet, dense, and with a texture that is closer to syrup or honey than typical juice, it’s hard to stop at just one. If you crack a jar of these open, there won’t be any left to refrigerate!

Canned apricots are also deceptively easy to prepare, and in a variety of ways, using nothing more than a water bath canner. Check out the recipe here for a great step-by-step walkthrough. Just make sure you pick out the freshest fruit possible, and you can’t go wrong.

Bread-and-Butter Pickles

The quintessential home-canned condiment, there’s almost no sandwich that cannot be improved by crisp, tangy pickles. One of the best around, if you like a little kick of sweetness, are bread-and-butter.

Once again, the homemade stuff blows the big store-bought brands right out of the water. Or should I say, right out of the brine!

You’ll need cucumbers and a few extra ingredients for making pickling brine, and even though you don’t have to can them to get great flavor, you’ve got to process them for a long shelf life.

Dill Pickles

For real pickle lovers, nothing tops a classic dill. Intensely tangy, slightly sour, and sometimes a little peppery, dill pickles are the perfect choice for cutting the rich fattiness of burgers and other red meat. They also form a great basis for relish and other condiment mixes.

Just like the bread-and-butter pickles we talked about above, canning isn’t strictly necessary to prepare them. You can toss in your cucumber spears or slices in the brine and leave them in the fridge if you want. But if you want to store them for up to a year or even a little bit longer, you’ve got to process them in your canner.

Sweet and Hot Jalapeños

Cucumber pickles are great, but for my money, nothing beats the crisp kick of jalapeños. I think they’re also even more versatile than pickles are! Pickled jalapeños are terrific on sandwiches, pizza, salads, baked potatoes, and so much more.

My hands-down favorite variety comes from this recipe, which changes up the typical pickling brine for a sugary syrup. They last just as long in storage, but the pop of sweetness is a wonderful contrast to the heat. If you are a spicy pepper lover, I promise you’ll love these.

Classic Pickled Peppers

It turns out that all kinds of peppers are picture-perfect for canning at home. Whether you want a milder flavor of bell peppers, the subtle heat of poblanos, or anything else you can think of, there is recipe for you.

Whether you like it mild or wild, the versatility of pickling and the ease of water bath canning is a great way to get started. If you are brand new, put this recipe high on your list: it’s very difficult to mess up!

Pickled Onions

Another condiment, or side item, that tastes great and is painless to make. Raw onions are harsh, biting, and borderline malodorous.

Canned, pickled onions are mild, crisp, tart, and savory. Another stupendously good topping, and one that is the perfect starting point for folks just getting going with canning.

Like peppers above, there are many ways to pickle onions. Trying different pickling brines and spices can give your onions hugely different flavor profiles. It’s great to try new ones, but always stick with tested recipes!

Pickled Garlic

Whatever kind of dish you are preparing, chances are that garlic is what makes it good. It’s one of the most indispensable kitchen ingredients, and you can use it in lots of new ways by pickling it.

Pickling garlic gives results that are a lot like pickling onions: it takes away that aggressive taste and mellows it out considerably while preserving that savory, delicious flavor.

This is the perfect thing for adding to a charcuterie board, relishes, and other recipes. Pickling and canning your garlic is an especially good way to preserve your own harvest for future use; even garlic lovers will be hard-pressed to use up a ton of the fresh stuff.

Pickled Banana Peppers

Yet another tangy topping, and one that most folks will only ever try pickled and canned.

Banana peppers are a good choice for breaking up the monotony of typical pickles and jalapeños, and they’re just as good on sandwiches as they are on pizza, burgers, and a lot more.

Zucchini Corn Relish

Corn typically requires pressure canning for safety, but there are exceptions that allow it to be safely canned using a water bath rig. One of those exceptions is when it is acidified with other safe ingredients.

If you’re in the mood for something new, tasty, and filling, definitely check out this zucchini corn relish. It’s a cinch to prepare and completely safe for water bath canning methods.

Sauerkraut

Another creative option for canning something that normally requires a pressure canning setup, sauerkraut is already fermented and quite acidic, meaning it is okay for processing in a water bath.

Canned sauerkraut will keep for a very, very long time and it maintains a fresh, tangy flavor. But there’s one downside to know about, though it’s not something that everyone will care about: the canning process will destroy the helpful probiotics that fresh sauerkraut is renowned for.

But if all you care about is good taste and shelf life, this recipe is certainly worth a try.

Cranberry Sauce

This holiday favorite deserves more time in the rotation year-round, as far as I’m concerned.

Cranberry sauce is the perfect combination of sweet and tangy, and aside from being a satisfying side or light dessert, it can also be a wonderful topping for pork, chicken, turkey, and more.

This easy, time-tested recipe blows away the jellified stuff you get at the grocery store, and it keeps long enough that you’ll be able to crack open a jar whenever you want throughout the year after you make your own batch.

Tomatoes, Whole

A ubiquitous kitchen staple, there are so many sauces, soups, meatloafs, and more that start life with canned tomatoes. Once again, you can make your own easily and cheaply, and they will far exceed commercially canned options.

Canning tomatoes properly is slightly more involved than you might be thinking, and contrary to popular belief, they still require extra acid for safety. Nothing to worry about, though, and this recipe will walk you through it step-by-step in detail.

Tomatoes, Sliced or Diced

If you’d prefer to keep tomatoes on hand and ready to use in salsas and other dishes that call for diced or sliced ones, check out this other recipe.

Homemade Ketchup

Is there any condiment that is more American than ketchup? I don’t think so, or at least there had better not be: we love the stuff and use so much of it that it’s made us the butt of jokes around the world. Right, wrong, or indifferent, we put ketchup on everything!

But it’s time to get away from the processed red goop in the plastic bottle. Homemade ketchup has dimensionality, flavor, and texture that’s entirely unlike the stuff kids crave. You’ll love this on all the same things, and take it from me, it will take your burgers or meatloaf to the next level.

Tangy BBQ Sauce

There’s hardly any sauce out there that is more contentious and more likely to start a fight than barbecue sauce. Every state and every chef lays claim to the best variety, the original recipe. It’s a whole subculture. I don’t know about all that; I just like it on my chicken!

Just like ketchup above, homemade BBQ sauce is light years beyond the grocery store mainstays. It’s easy to prepare and easy to can for the long haul so you always have it on hand. Taking just a little time to prepare a batch will easily give you a year’s supply.

Classic Spaghetti Sauce

At the intersection of comforting, filling, and easy-to-make lies spaghetti. Everyone likes their own twist on this classic Italian dish, and whether you like it with meatballs or just noodles, all spaghetti starts with a great homemade sauce.

This recipe is delicious, painless, and so easy to prepare and store. A stash of this in your pantry will easily let you call an audible on a weeknight dinner when your other plans fall completely apart.

Boil some noodles, crack open a jar, and you’re basically done. I warn you: there’s no going back to Prego after you try this!

Simple Tomato Salsa

Believe it or not, it is salsa, not ketchup, that is the most popular condiment in the United States based on sales volume alone. Whether you like it on your eggs or as the go-to dip for pigging out on tortilla chips, it’s undeniably awesome.

Something to consider is that salsa is so easy to make at home you’ve got almost no excuse to buy the stuff. But if you want it to last, you’ll need to can it, and that’s where this recipe comes in.

Zesty Pickled Asparagus

If you like asparagus, you’ll love these zesty pickled spears. If you don’t like asparagus, I’m challenging you to give these a try. You’ll probably come away with a different point of view and maybe a new favorite food!

These tasty pickled spears make a great side item, garnish for a sandwich, or you can chop them up and add them to relishes. Easy to make in a water bath canner, and they store for a long time.

Pickled Okra

One of the most beloved veggies eaten across the South, okra is nonetheless pretty contentious.

Some folks love it for its crisp flavor, but other people are turned off by what they perceive as sliminess. If you fall into the latter category, pickled okra might make a believer out of you.

The tangy, acidic brine cuts that sliminess and enhances flavor. Once again, it makes for a great garnish or side, or it can be chopped or diced with or without other ingredients to make a good relish.

Easy Apple Pie Filling

For lots of folks I know, pie fillings, preserves, and more are the reason that they started canning in the first place. I don’t know why, but canned pie filling is just indulgent. I think it’s got something to do with the way all the flavors mingle together.

Nothing’s more classic, or more satisfying, than apple pie, and having homemade pie filling on hand and ready to use will make whipping up a fresh one easier than ever. Another pro tip from me: be sure to try this stuff on ice cream!

Blueberry Jam or Preserves

When it comes to making any kind of fruit spread or topping, nothing beats a water bath canner.

Although they don’t get much fanfare compared to strawberry, grape, and other varieties, blueberry jam is a supremely tasty and highly versatile option for both breakfast and dessert.

You’ll have to spend a little bit of time prepping the berries before you pack the jars and get to processing, but it’s time well spent…

Raspberry Jelly

Another one of my very favorite fruit products to can. Raspberry jam is tangy, sweet, and amazing on toast, English muffins, pancakes, croissants, cake, and a whole lot more.

This is another recipe that’s super simple and a great one for beginners to try. The only tricky part is sorting through your berries: picking ones that are completely undamaged and at the peak of ripeness is critical for getting a good batch of jam.

Blackberry Jam

If you’re anything like me, you like jam and preserves a lot. Probably too much. I always look for an excuse to break this stuff out and indulge, and I’m a little ashamed to admit plenty of midnight raids on the refrigerator eating it right out of the jar.

So if you’ve grown tired of the usual jam, it’s time to step things up a bit… This blackberry jam recipe adds honey and rosemary for a kick of sweetness, richness, and the fragrant warmth of rosemary for an experience that is totally unique and sure to thrill your family and friends.

I bet you’ll love it, and this recipe, more than many others, makes an elegant and novel gift.

Elderberry Jam

Elderberries are surging in popularity these days… Part of this is due to their supposed health benefits since they are packed with antioxidants, and the other part is due to their flavor. They are sweet, tart, and have a unique element that goes perfectly with pastries and pancakes.

You’ll have to put in a little bit of work if you want to enjoy it, though, because elderberries must be thoroughly cooked to make them safe to eat. Turning them into jam is virtually foolproof, though, so don’t worry about that too much.

Fig Jam

Figs are another food that normally demand pressure canning for safety, but they can be safely processed in a water bath canner when turned into jam. Fig jam is sticky, rich, and very sweet, and those crispy little seeds give it a unique texture that is so enjoyable.

This is another jam that can do double duty as a glaze or topping for meat, also.

Grape Juice

Water bath canners are just the ticket for preserving various juices, with grape juice being a great candidate.

If you’ve only ever had the weak concentrated stuff from the grocery store, you don’t know what you’re missing out on: home-canned grape juice is intensely sweet and astringent in equal measure. It’s great!

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate

This is the perfect refreshing beverage to put away for end-of-summer cookouts. This concentrate is too sweet, and too tart, to drink right out of the jar unless you’re a maniac, but you can use it to make a big pitcher of refreshing lemonade whenever you want.

It requires just three ingredients, and you can prepare it in minutes. Also, note you can use fresh or bottled lemon juice at your preference. Nothing beats fresh, but you can save even more time by using the bottled stuff.