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Canning blackberries allows you to take a short-season fruit and preserves it for year-round use, no freezer required.
Blackberries hold up remarkably well to canning and emerge for the jars firm and flavorful, perfect for use anywhere you’d use them fresh.
We eat a lot of blackberries in the wintertime. There’s just something warming about these soft forest fruits, perhaps it’s because they ripen during the hottest part of summer here in Vermont.
Or maybe it’s that they’re dark, like a deep red wine that you’d drink with a winter comfort food meal. Until I learned to can blackberries, my family used to buy them by the case for winter baking.
A quick batch of blackberry muffins? Blackberry cobbler a la mode? A warm blackberry clafoutis? Yes, please!
While you’d think a soft fruit would fall apart during canning, blackberries hold up remarkably well. I’ve found that canned blackberries work a lot better in baked goods than frozen, and they’re also perfect for topping breakfast cereal, oatmeal or yogurt.
The thing about canning blackberries at home is you get to choose how much sugar you use, and season them however you choose. The Ball Book of Canning and Preserving has a recipe for canned blackberries seasoned with blackberry brandy. Talk about making a warming winter preserve!
Personally, I think drinks like blackberry brandy or Chambord tastes a bit artificial, and I love adding regular brandy, along with nutmeg. Start by extracting a bit of juice from a small portion of your blackberries.
A small amount of sacrificial syrup blackberries means that the remaining fruit will be canned in flavorful blackberry juice, and they won’t lose flavor to the canning liquid.
Take 1/3 of your blackberries, crush slightly and simmer them with a small amount of water for about 2 minutes until they release their juices. Then strain out the juice through a fine-mesh strainer.
The “sacrificial” juice blackberries still have plenty of flavor, which means they can be reused in other cooking. But if you cook them longer than 2 minutes they’ll release too much pectin into the juice.
The remaining strained blackberries can be reused to make blackberry jam, or saved for topping ice cream or yogurt later. For each pint of canned blackberries, you need a total of 3 cups of blackberries, two to fill the jar and one to make blackberry juice for the canning syrup.
My recipe uses part homemade blackberry juice and part brandy for canning liquid. The resulting berries end up a tiny bit alcoholic, even after cooking in a syrup and canning.
In my house, they’re then cooked yet again into some type of baked good. At that point, there’s very little alcohol left, but if you want to make them alcohol-free that’s perfectly fine too.
The brandy isn’t necessary for preservation. Either add more blackberry juice in place of the brandy, some other fruit juice (like apple) or water.
Canning Blackberries
Ingredients
Blackberry Syrup
- 2 cups blackberries, divided
- 1/4 cup water
Canned Blackberries
- 2 cups water
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
- 4 cups blackberries
- 1/2 cup brandy
- Blackberry juice prepared above
Instructions
- Prepare canning jars (2 one pint jars or 4 half-pint jars) and a water bath canner.
- Place 2 cups of blackberries in a small saucepan, mashing the berries slightly with a potato masher. Add a 1/4 cup of water and simmer for about 2 minutes until they release their juices. Strain the berries through a fine mesh strainer, reserving the fruit pulp for another use.
- In another saucepan, bring 2 cups water, sugar and spices to a boil and cook 5 minutes. Add in 4 cups blackberries, brandy, and blackberry juice.
- Return the pan to a boil, stirring constantly to distribute the heat on the berries and blanch all sides. Be gentle so that the fruit are not damaged.
- Using a slotted spoon, fill canning jars with blackberries, leaving a generous 1/2 inch headspace.
- Use a ladle to spoon boiling blackberry syrup over the fruits, retaining a 1/2 inch headspace.
- Wipe rim, center 2 part canning lids on jars and close to finger tight.
- Process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes and then turn off the heat. Allow the jars to rest 5 minutes with the heat off before removing them to cool on a towel on the counter. After 24 hours check seals and store any unsealed jars in the refrigerator for immediate use.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
More Blackberry Recipes
How long do the canned blackberries last?
Once properly canned and sealed, they don’t spoil so long as the jar is sealed (refrigerate after opening, and use within a week or two, of course). After about 12-18 months, the quality will start to slowly degrade and they’re not quite as tasty, and the texture starts to decline. They’re still good at that point, but not as good as in the first 12 months. It’s best to use them up within a year for peak quality, but even still, I’ve found jars at the back of the pantry 2 and 3 years later and they’re still lovely. Enjoy!
I am going to make this today, and wondering if I can just run the blackberries through my food mill and use that instead of the “sacrificial berries”. I typically do this to make seedless blackberry jam, and I’m hoping it’ll work for this as well!
You really just want the juice so that you don’t release too much pectin into the juice.
Trying this today ! When you use your canned blackberries for baking, do you drain the juice off ?
It depends on the recipe. If the recipe just calls for whole blackberries then you probably don’t want the excess liquid. I would definitely be sure to save the liquid to use in other recipes though.
Excited to try this