Canning Peas

Canning peas is a simple way to preserve peas on the pantry shelf fresh from the garden. They’re much better than store-bought tinned peas, and canning soon after harvest seals in their natural sweetness.

Canned peas are a particular favorite of mine, mainly because they were such a treat when I was a kid. Yes, you read that right, canned peas were a treat in my childhood.

The only vegetables we ever had were canned, and more often than not it was canned corn (which isn’t even strictly a vegetable, but that’s another story).

Every once in a while, that canned corn would get switched out with canned peas and I’d be in heaven. If it was someone’s birthday and my parents were feeling flush, they might even spring for canned asparagus, but don’t get greedy.

Simple pleasures to be sure, but even as an adult I remember canned peas as a childhood treat, back when money was so tight that an extra nickel for peas in a can seemed like an extravagance.

Now that I’m grown, we have huge sprawling gardens, and the only canned foods my kids eat are those that I’ve put up in mason jars.

We eat plenty of fresh veggies, and in the summer months, we all work together canning corn. I even put up a few jars of pressure canned asparagus every year, but now home-canned peas are an even bigger treat in my book than canned asparagus (which is relatively quick and simple to can at home).

Canning peas takes work, but mostly it takes time.

It’s not hard work, of course, and it’s honestly one of the best ways to spend your time in the spring and early summer months. Time spent sitting in the spring breeze shelling peas while my kids play in the yard, looking over my shoulder at all the other things I “should” be doing…

Instead, I’m here with my feet up slowly shelling peas, smelling the lilacs, and listening to the sounds of the littles giggling as they spray each other with the hose.

Shelling Peas

Canning peas at home starts with shelling peas. Be sure you’re growing a shelling pea variety, which is different than snap or snow peas.

Both snap and snow peas are delicious, but they don’t work for pressure canning.

If you have those and are determined to preserve them, try making fermented snap peas or pickled snap peas. That will preserve them, but still, their best use is eaten fresh and sweet out of hand in the garden.

If you have a lot of peas, you can invest in a pea sheller which will greatly speed up the process, or you can just take your time and shell them slowly by hand in a comfy chair (or porch rocker if you really want to go old school).

I snap off the ends with my fingers, pulling up towards the seam, and then continue to pull and it “unzips” the string on the pea shell. From there they just fold open and you can pop the peas out.

Amount of Peas Per Canning Jar

How many peas do you need for a batch? That depends a bit on how mature your peas are, but assuming they’re perfectly ripe, it takes roughly:

• 20-ish pounds of peas (in shell) for a 9-pint canner batch
• 30 to 32-ish pounds of peas (in shell) for a 7-quart canner batch

If measuring the peas once shelled, it takes about 9 ounces of shelled peas for a narrow mouth pint jar (around 10 ounces per wide mouth, as they pack better). For a quart, double it.

I tend to use narrow mouth pint jars for two reasons:

• The “shoulders” on the jars help keep the peas down in the jar under the water line even if there is a bit of siphoning (or liquid loss) in the canner.
• More narrow mouth pints fit into my canner than wide mouth. I have a 30-quart double-decker All-American canner, which can hold 19 narrow-mouth pints (but only 18 wide-mouth pints). It’s a minor thing, but I do tend to save the narrow mouth pints for pressure canning because of it.

Quarts honestly would be the most economical in terms of canning time, since the canner holds 14 quarts (which works out to 28 pints in volume), but a pint serving size works out better for my family.

Choose what works best for your family, knowing that the canning times for both pints and quarts are the same.

How to Can Peas

You have a number of options when canning peas, but know that they must be pressure canned. Peas are a low acid vegetable and they’re not safe for water bath canning. If you’re not familiar with pressure canning, please read my beginner’s guide to pressure canning before getting started.

You do get to choose your jar size and pack type, though.

Jar Size ~ When canning other vegetables, a larger jar size means a longer canning time (and potentially mushy vegetables), but with peas, the canning time is the same for pints and quarts. Choose what fits your family best.

Pack Type ~ For pack type, you can do either raw pack or hot pack. Usually, hot packs result in better quality finished products. When canning peaches, for example, a hot pack results in a dramatically better finished product, even though it is a pain to pack fruit hot.

For peas, I’ve tried both, and honestly, I can’t tell the difference between hot pack and raw pack peas. They both fill out the jar nicely and the texture and flavor is identical.

I’d suggest raw packing since it’s so much easier, but I’ll walk you through both methods.

Hot Pack

Blanch the peas in boiling water for 2 minutes, then lift them out with a slotted spoon and pack them loosely into the prepared canning jars. Add salt if you like, 1/2 teaspoon per pint or 1 teaspoon per quart. Top with either fresh boiling water from a kettle or the blanching water.

Leave 1-inch headspace and seal with 2 part lids. Load the jars into a pressure canner that’s been preheated to just simmering (around 180 degrees F).

Raw Pack

Fill the jars loosely with raw peas, without shaking or pressing them down. Add salt if you like, 1/2 teaspoon per pint or 1 teaspoon per quart, and top with boiling water from a kettle. Leave 1-inch headspace and seal with 2 part lids.

Load the jars into a pressure canner that’s been filled with very hot water, and just barely heated (around 140 degrees F). Note that’s much cooler than a hot pack to prevent the jars from cracking due to thermal shock.

The canner will take much longer to come up to temperature.

With either a hot or raw pack, seal the pressure canner lid on the canner after the last jar is loaded, but don’t start bringing it up to pressure. Turn the heat up to high and allow the steam to vent for 10 minutes before adding the canning weight and bringing the canner up to pressure.

Begin timing when the canner is at pressure and process both pint and quart jars for 40 minutes at 10 lbs pressure in a weighted gauge canner or 11 lbs in a dial gauge canner, adjusting the pressure for your altitude (see below).

When the time is up, turn off the heat and let the canner return to zero pressure on its own. Remove the weight or open the petcock, wait 10 minutes, then take off the lid, tilting it away from you, and lift the jars out. Let them cool undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check the seals.

Store any unsealed jars in the refrigerator for immediate use. Properly canned and sealed jars will keep on the pantry shelf without losing quality for 12 to 18 months.

Pea Canning Recipes

Beyond simply pressure canning peas as they are in water, maybe with a bit of salt, you can also incorporate them into other canning recipes. They’re in my canning recipe for beef pot pie filling and chicken pot pie filling, and they really add a bright green note to that hearty meal in a jar.

When you’re canning split pea soup it’s not fresh garden peas, but rather dried split peas, so keep that in mind.

Ways to Preserve Peas

Looking for other ways to preserve peas? Honestly, they’re a bit tricky to preserve. Besides canning, the only other real option is freezing peas, but it will use up a good bit of freezer space.

I was hoping to make a garden pea wine for use in savory recipes (like risotto), but as it turns out, it’s traditionally made as a pea pod wine with the leftover pods after you’re done shelling the peas. It’s a good way to make use of the empty shells, but it won’t help you preserve peas.

Vegetable Canning Recipes

Looking for more ways to can vegetables and other garden produce?

• Canning Carrots
• Canning Green Beans
• Canning Corn
• Canning Pumpkin
• Canning Sweet Potatoes
• Canning Potatoes

Pressure Canning Recipes

Stock your pantry with these pressure canning recipes:

• Canning Beef
• Canning Turkey
• Canning Beans (Pinto, Black, and More)
• Canning Bone Broth