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Canning meals in a jar is a great way to have delicious homemade prepared food ready to heat and eat, all right from your pantry shelf.
It’s one thing to use canning to put up a little bit of extra produce from the garden, but you’ve reached a new level when you start canning ready-to-heat and eat meals in a mason jar.
You’re not canning ingredients anymore; you’re canning whole meals that will make a real difference on a busy weeknight later on.
While it’s true that a jar of homemade beef stew isn’t quite as versatile as individual jars of home-canned potatoes, canned carrots, beef stock, and stew beef…it makes more sense when it’s late, and you’re flailing around looking for meal ideas.
Just a few home-canned meals in a jar can mean the difference between a satisfying, healthy home-cooked meal instead of expensive, greasy take-out food.
Versatility comes from canning a variety of different ready-made meals that you know your family loves. To do that, you need a good selection of meal-in-a-jar canning recipes.
Fear not! I’ve got you covered. This is every single meal-in-a-jar canning recipe that the internet offers (at least at the time of this writing).
Guidelines for Canning Meals in a Jar
Before we dive into the actual recipes, it’s important to cover what’s safe for canning (and what’s not).
All of these recipes are pressure-canning recipes because they include hearty ingredients like meat and vegetables. Canning jam, fruit, and pickles in a water bath canner does preserve food, but it just provides condiments and dessert, not the heart of the meal.
If you’re not familiar with pressure canning, please read my beginner’s guide to pressure canning before you get started.
I use a 30-quart All-American Brand Pressure Canner, and it’s the best one on the market, in my opinion. There are other options though, and I cover all of those in my article on the supplies you need for canning.
Once you’re familiar with how a pressure canner works, realizing it has its limits is important. While it’s perfectly fine to can meat, broth, and vegetables, some ingredients cannot be canned at home.
Canning recipes should never include:
- Milk, Cream, Butter, and Other Dairy Products
- Coconut Milk
- Flour, Corn Starch, and most thickeners (Canning Clear Jel is the only Exception)
- Rice, Pasta, and Other Starchy Foods
- Eggs, including pickled eggs
All of those ingredients can be added at serving time. For example, we pressure can beef stew without thickeners and then quickly thicken the broth as we’re warming it on the stove.
The only thickener safe for canning is cook-type clear jel, which is usually used when canning premade pie fillings. Some people do use it to thicken sauces in savory meals, but I don’t. It leads to a goopy, pie-filling-like texture that I don’t want in my main courses.
Pasta for chicken noodle soup is another example. Just can the chicken, broth, and veggies, then cook the pasta and add it in as the soup warms on the stove.
You can pressure can things like Thai curry, but you’ll have to add coconut milk when you warm the meal.
You get the idea.
If you’re worried about not having perishable ingredients like milk and butter on hand when it comes to mealtime, there are shelf-stable versions of perishable pantry ingredients that require no refrigeration.
They’re a great option to keep in your emergency pantry, right next to your meals in a jar.
Lastly, I’ll note that if you’re above 1,000 feet in elevation, you’ll need to adjust the pressure accordingly to make sure your meal-in-a-jar recipes are processed correctly. You can refer to this guide on altitude adjustments for pressure canning.
Meal in a Jar Canning Recipes
I’ve scoured the internet for every meal-in-a-jar canning recipe available and collected them all into categories for your easy reference. Hearty meals like chili, soups, stews, curries, stroganoff, and more.
That said, not every pressure canning recipe is available free on the internet at this point. There are plenty more, but you’ll have to look in canning books.
In my opinion, the best pressure canning book is Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. It contains some truly spectacular (and unique) meal-in-a-jar recipes that you just can’t find anywhere else.
I love that Angi’s recipes are all well-tested, and she’s put in extra work to ensure they’re all safe and approved for home canning. She has several dozen meal-in-a-jar canning recipes that are not published anywhere on the internet.
The other book I’d recommend is The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning by Diane Devereaux, but if you use that book, you’ll have to do your own homework. She includes some ingredients that are just not safe for pressure canning (like coconut milk, etc.), so be sure to watch that.
She also uses clear jel as a thickener in soups, which, while approved for canning, makes them goopy and is not to everyone’s taste.
Nonetheless, she has many good ideas, and her book is a great place to get inspiration. If you only get one pressure canning book, go with Angi’s Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond.
Hearty Meat Dinners
Hearty dinners made from canned seasoned meat work out really well at the center of the table. Some of these are just the meat main course, meaning you can add something like home-canned corn on the side. Or, you can just heat and eat and not worry about it.
Others include everything, with both meat and vegetables in the jar.
Either way, I’ve broken them down by the type of meat included in the recipe. If you’re looking for vegetarian main courses, skip down to the next section.
Beef
These beef meal-in-a-jar canning recipes will also work with other types of red meat, including venison, moose, bear, and veal. Pork can also be substituted in place of beef in any of these recipes, as the canning instructions are the same.
Canning beef generally can be done as slices, steaks, cubes, or ground meat, and is usually done with beef stock as the canning liquid (but tomato juice is also popular).
I have a separate list of more than 30 beef canning recipes, but these are a great place to start:
- Beef Pot Pie Filling
- Beef with Wine Sauce
- Beef Burgundy (Julia Child’s Recipe)
- Beef Pot Roast in a Jar
- Beef Stroganoff
- Beef Tips and Gravy
- Sauerbraten
- Meatballs in Tomato Juice
- Chipotle Beef for Tacos
- Vindaloo Curry (Often done with lamb or goat, but beef works well too)
Beyond whole chunks of beef, you can also pressure can ground beef. Ground beef canning recipes are an economical way to put protein on your pantry shelf, and it works especially well for canning taco filling, chili and sloppy joe filling.
You can also can plain ground beef; believe it or not, canning Hamberger patties work fine too. Once out of the jar, you just brown them again to crisp the outsides and serve them like a regular hamburger.
- Canning Hamburger (patties or crumble)
- Taco Meat (Ground beef and seasoning)
- Ground Beef Chili (Chili con Carne)
- Sloppy Joe Filling
Pork
The instructions for canning pork are largely the same as canning beef, and it can also be put up as slices, steaks, cubes, or ground.
The main thing to note here is that cured pork products (like ham and bacon) are not approved for canning because the cure makes the meat denser, and heat doesn’t penetrate the same way.
There are a few tested canning recipes that use a small amount of ham or bacon for flavor, like Boston Baked Beans. Those have been specifically tested, and it’s really only a piece or two per jar.
You cannot put up a whole jar of bacon or ham alone, as there’s no tested process for that.
- Pulled Pork
- Pork Tenderloin
- Pork Sausage
- Quebec Pork Meatballs
- Pork Spareribs
- Mississippi Pork Roast
Chicken, Duck & Rabbit
The canning instructions for chicken, duck, and rabbit are all the same. (The same instructions apply to goose, partridge, and other game birds, as well as small game like squirrel.)
Poultry can be canned bone-in, or boneless, and believe it or not, when you do it, bone in the canning time is less because the bones conduct heat to the center of the jar better.
They also take up space in the jars, so you lose a bit there…but it is still not a bad option for pieces that are hard to bone raw (like wings and legs).
I have a separate list of more than 20 chicken canning recipes, but here are a few to get you started.
- Canning Chicken: Breasts, Thighs, Drumsticks or Wings
- Chicken and Gravy Dinner in a Jar
- Chicken Pot Pie Filling
- Chicken Soup
- Chicken Taco Meat
- Thai Red Curry Duck (or Chicken)
Vegetarian Meal in a Jar Canning Recipes
If you’re looking for meal-in-a-jar canning recipes without meat, you’ve come to the right place. While most feature some type of meat front and center, there are quite a few that are based on either beans or mixed vegetables.
Things like soups, chili, veggie baked beans, and more.
- Beans with Tomato or Molasses Sauce (Vegetarian)
- Vegetarian Chili Beans
- Spiced Tomato Soup
- Garden Vegetable Soup
- Canning Mushroom Soup Base (Cream/Thickener added at serving)
- Potato Leek Soup
- Carrot and Fennel Soup
- Asparagus Soup
- Spicy Tomato Vegetable Soup
- Tomato Soup Concentrate
- Canning Beans (Pinto, Black, and more)
Chili Canning Recipes
A classic easy meal in a jar, chili has all the ingredients to satisfy right in one bowl. Standard chili con carne is always a classic, but you can also make mixed bean chili or a lighter white bean and chicken chili too.
We always keep a few different variations on our pantry shelf, and then it’s easy to serve next to a quick batch of homemade cornbread.
Beef Chili Canning Recipes
While these are beef chili recipes, you can substitute any red meat instead of beef.
Feel free to turn this into venison chili, elk chili, or even bear chili if you have the meat.
- Classic Chili con Carne (Ground Beef Chili With Beans)
- Meat Lovers Chili
- Chipotle Ground Beef Chili (no beans)
- Beef Chuck Chili (no beans)
Chicken Chili Canning Recipes
Red meats make traditional chili recipes, but chicken chili is delicious in its own right. These chicken chilis tend to keep things lighter, skipping the tomato and using white beans instead of red kidney beans.
They’re a nice twist on an old classic.
(You can use any poultry in these recipes, including turkey, duck, or goose.)
Other Chili Canning Recipes
While pork and venison can be used in place of beef in classic beef chili recipes, sometimes it’s nice to have a specific recipe that tailors the seasonings to the meat used.
Meat and Bean Canning Recipes
Chili isn’t the only way to put meat and beans in a jar.
Honestly, most chili recipes don’t even include beans…they’re just spiced meat. Anyway, meat and beans are a classic combination that deserves their own category.
While baked beans are popular, it’s far from the only option for meat and bean canning recipes.
- Cajun Red Beans with Andouille Sausage
- Beans with Salt Pork and Tomato Sauce
- Chili Con Carne (Ground Beef Chili with Beans)
- Boston Baked Beans
Soup Canning Recipes
Canning soup at home is such an easy way to put a meal in a jar, and I actually have a whole separate article covering soup canning recipes.
Here are some of the very best options:
- French Onion Soup
- Classic Beef Stew
- Vegetable Beef Stew
- Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup (Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Copycat Recipe)
- Split Pea Soup with Ham
- Classic Chicken Soup
- Chicken Vegetable Soup
- Mexican Chicken Soup
- Chicken Tortilla Soup
- Sausage and Bean Soup
Other Meal in-a-Jar Ideas
Beyond explicit “meal in a jar” recipes, there are several other canning recipes that already make up most of a meal. Things like ready-made pasta sauce, especially pasta sauce with meat, only require cooking some pasta on the side.
These are almost a full meal and worth keeping on your pantry shelf.
Canning Recipe Guides
Looking for delicious home canning recipes to stock your pantry?
- 100+ Canning Recipes from A to Z
- 50+ Pressure Canning Recipes
- 50+ Vegetable Canning Recipes
- How to Make Jam (with 30+ Recipes)
- 50+ Fruit Canning Recipes
This post is a treasure trove of ideas! I love the concept of Meal in a Jar for easy meals on busy days. The variety of recipes you provided is impressive, and I can’t wait to try the chili and chicken soup recipes. Thanks for sharing such practical and delicious options for canning!
You’re very welcome. We’re so glad it was helpful.
Do you sale this in a book format? Am I missing the link? Thanks
No I’m sorry we don’t currently have any books.
I have been canning tomatoe soup for years. I got the recipe from an 1977 Kerr canning book.
It has flour and butter in it.
I see you mention not to can with flour. Do you think this is an exception because it is in tomato?
This is our favorite tomato soup.
It is hot water bath.
No, unfortunately I think it is because the book was written before new research was done on canning guidelines. What I would do is can the recipe without the flour and butter. Then, when you get ready to prepare it you can make a roux with the butter and flour and then add the canned soup to the roux.
Could you share which of these recipes you’ve made and enjoyed?
Thanks for all of the helpful info!
This list was mainly created from research as to what was available on the internet. If you want a recommendation for solid recipes, I would definitely take the suggestion of getting Angi’s book that’s mentioned in the post.
How come your jars of product are so full? when headspace is needed. Have they just been mocked up for the photo shoot?
A 1 inch headspace is required for most pressured canned food which allows for the food to expand during the processing time. Some of what you’re seeing in the pictures may be a result of the food expanding from the heat of the canning process.
I looked at your sauerbraten recipe and it says ‘cube the meat’ but no mention of the amount of meat to use for that recipe. Could you give me an idea of the best meat for canning. Thanks
This isn’t actually our recipe. It’s a link to another website. It looks like they used bottom round in this recipe. There isn’t a specific amount. You just fill a pint jar 3/4 of the way with the meat. You can then use as many jars as you need for the amount of meat that you have on hand.
I’ve just started learning about pressure canning and am a little confused. The article states not to pressure can starchy foods, but a few of the recipes have potatoes. Are potatoes safe as opposed to rice and pasta?
Yes potatoes are safe.
I’ve canned meat, potatoes and carrots in jars before and just beef as well. It does look delicious to have it all in one jar to be able to heat and serve.
Ready to try pressure canning ,what canner would yourecommend
Here is a post that is a Beginners Guide to Pressure Canning which talks about choosing a canner. https://practicalselfreliance.com/pressure-canning/
So many great ideas. I’ve got so many ideas now to get me through the winter. Thanks.
You’re welcome. We’re so glad it was helpful for you.
First of all, kudos to you. Your responses are always handled with diplomacy, tact, grace, and, above all, practical thinking. The blog is titled “Practical Self-Reliance” and that is what you deliver.
I have a question about sausage, I’ve never made it and I’m wondering if it:
1. Falls into the same category as bacon (preserved/cured and shouldn’t be canned)
2. Depends on the type of, or processing of, the sausage, and I need to do my homework before using it while canning recipes
3. Safe to pressure can: go for it!
Thanks!
You can actually can sausage. If you look in the post, there are several links to safe canning recipes for sausage.
I think the sausage that is safe for canning is just ground pork with seasonings. Sausage that is cured, like pepperoni or salami is very dense and that’s probably why it got the unsafe tag.
I come to this site frequently to look for new recipes and how to’s for something I haven’t tried. I like the site with one exception. I would greatly appreciate if you could add an “jump to recipe” setting so I can get to the recipe quicker. You do have great info, but most of the time, I just want the recipe. I don’t mind learning something new, I just tend to be in a bit a hurry to get busy on whatever project I am working on. Thanks
We totally understand. Thanks so much for that suggestion.
I am with you on the thickening agents.
I learned something new from putting up some potatoes for the first time this year from a comment on a canning site I belong to.
If you open a jar of just potatoes, there’s starch included. I always rinsed the starch off before using the potatoes. I learned the starch can be used as a thickening agent if the potatoes are being used in a casserole.
I still rinse if potatoes will be fried, or used otherwise.
I had no idea about this pressure canning
I made myself a couple batches of bone broth and just jarred it in clean and boiled jars, they all sealed so I thought all was good…isn’t it? Should I dump it? Thankfully I froze the Chicken broth but the pork and beef broths are in jars. I haven’t opened any of them so I don’t know if its bad.
Also, my Sister gave me some beets she put up the same way, should they be tossed as well?
Is this the way that all those Amish women can things? I never heard of pressure canning till now and only ever canned jams without a problem. Whats the difference?
Please let me know about the broths I’ve put up.
Thanks!
Anything that is a low acid food should be pressure canned in order to be shelf stable. The heat will seal the jar lids but that alone does not make the food safe to consume after being left on the shelf. The food must be processed properly for the tested amount of time in order to kill off the bacteria and be safe. High acid foods can safely be water bath canned.
Wonderful post
Thank you for providing safe pressure canning meal ideas! It’s the first thing I look for in a post. These look amazing!
You’re welcome. We’re so glad you enjoyed the post.
I see that you saw not to thicken the soups or stews but I had a question about beer. I like to make a Guinness stew but I didn’t know how the beer would react and the jars as they were being hand. Could you advise?
If it were me, I think I would can the components of the stew and then add the beer when you’re preparing it.
Is it possible to get the vegetarian thai squash soup recipe. When I click on it always says OOps something went wrong. Refreshing it does nothing. The other recipes work when I click on them.
I’m sorry but it looks like that link is no good. I tried to pull up the website separately and it looks like the entire site might be down. Unfortunately it’s an outside site so I don’t have access to the recipe.
A great source that is continuously updated on current safe practices is the Ball and Atlas websites. They are the pioneers in canning methods. And have kitchens designated for current testing. With constantly changing chemicals on our foods, they give safe practices for today’s standards. Yes our grandma’s did it a certain way, but you can’t grow those exact foods today. If you have a family recipe that hasn’t been updated to today’s standards, I’m glad no one has got sick. And I hope no one does. But it does not qualify it as a standard recipe for anyone to use. I have done the beef stew and chicken stews before. I’m going to try several new ones that you have listed.
It’s fine to say you don’t want to can certain things because a government agency says it’s not safe, but that doesn’t mean anyone else is doing it wrong. It means the government said, “oh no, this one person got sick from canning, it’s botulism, quick, make sure we get standards on that so we can’t risk anyone getting sick!” Self reliance also teaches us not to rely on the government to tell us what’s safe (remember when they said cigarettes should be smoked for your health?) Certain things, like noodles, can’t be canned because they use an alkaline water to make them in factories, so at home they turn to mush. I know plenty of people who can milk, butter and a variety of things and they’re still alive after 30 years. You realize that pressure canning is only a huge massive thing in the US, right? My friends in the UK have issues getting ahold of pressure canners. Somehow, millions of people around the world are canning everything we’re told is dangerous to…
Just pointing out facts. You are welcome to refute, I’m sure you will, but exclaiming we all have to follow the government’s canning standards “because it’s safe” just isn’t accurate. If it was, then millions of people in other countries would be dropping like flies from waterbath canning everything.
We are responsible to the readers of this blog so we choose to share canning information that has been tested as safe. If you don’t have the ability to preserve food in a way that has been tested as safe then it’s up to you to make a decision of whether or not it’s worth the risk. But I am not really sure what the point is if you have the ability to preserve food in a way that has been tested as safe and choose to instead use a way that has not been tested as safe. That just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I have canned chili with rice in it . Should I throw it away?
Rice cannot be safely pressure canned. Unfortunately, I would recommend throwing it out.
But store bought foods contain wild rice, and pasta. What is done differently? Chicken noodle soup has canned pasta. Some other sites say it’s safe. Can be very confusing. I have never canned these things but just curious how they do it differently commercially?
In commercial factories, they have machines that can get food to much higher temperatures than what can be achieved in a home kitchen. Those foods also typically contain a great deal of preservatives which can make a difference. You always want to be sure to follow websites that teach safe canning practices. If there is a site that is telling you that it’s safe to can pasta or rice then it’s not a safe site. You can always reference the National Center for Home Food Preservation when in doubt.
Thanks for sharing this. In uncertain times, it’s important to be prepared for anything. One of the most important things you can do is learn how to can your own food. Canned food is a great way to ensure that you’ll have something to eat in case of an emergency. And the best part is that you can make your own meals in a jar!
There are many different recipes that you can use for making meals in a jar. One of my favorites is chicken and dumplings. All you need is some cooked chicken, frozen peas and carrots, and some refrigerated biscuit dough. Simply layer the ingredients in a Mason jar, and then cook in the microwave or on the stovetop.
Another great recipe is taco salad. You’ll need cooked ground beef, black beans, corn, diced tomatoes, diced green chilies, and shredded cheese.
I would not recommend canning refrigerated biscuit dough. It is not safe to pressure can any recipes that include flour, pasta, rice or other starchy foods. Please see the post for safe pressure canning guidelines and a list of foods that should not be pressure canned.
I just read in your article not to use flour—I read it a bit late… after processing a batch of Beef Bourguignon (where I tossed the beef in a little flour before browning it). Can you tell me the adverse effects of using flour? All your recipes look wonderful and I want to make them all—I am new to canning. Thank you.
The problem with using thickeners like flour and corn starch in canning recipes is that it can thicken the food too much which causes density issues. If the food is too dense, the heat isn’t able to properly penetrate throughout the food for sterilization to be complete.
Your article states(as most do) to NOT can recipes including butter, but your recipe for canned beef burgundy has butter. I’m looking to get into canning so I’m learning before buying equipment and just wanted clarification.
The link for this recipe is actually a Ball recipe. I think that the difference in this recipe is that the butter is used to cook the mushrooms and isn’t actually being added to the jar.
When making strawberry pie filling do I need to mix clear jel with sugar till it is clear?
You want to dissolve your clear jel and sugar into cold water. You just want to be sure that it is completely dissolved in the water before turning the heat on and that there are no lumps.
Like what you doing I am here in Australia not many
Pressure canning people
Thank you. We’re so glad you’re enjoying the posts.