Pineapple is naturally high in both sugar and acid, making it perfect for canning at home. But why on earth would you can pineapple? Most of us are not exactly growing it in the backyard, and it’s easy enough to buy at the store.
One word…taste.
Home-canned pineapple tastes amazing, and you’ll never want to use watery, flavorless store-bought cans again.
Beyond taste, canned pineapple is a great way to take advantage of sale produce. Midwinter, pineapples are dirt cheap.
Up here in Vermont, they’re usually $4 to $5 each, or around $7 for organic. In January, they drop to $1 to $1.50 each! You can buy a whole case for a 5 spot and can it up at home to use all year long.
Start by peeling the pineapple. Chop off the top and bottom of the pineapple, and then use a chef’s knife to slice vertically down the sides, removing the peel and spines.
You can save the peels to make homemade tepache (a South American pineapple drink) or ferment them into pineapple vinegar. Waste not, want not.
The cores are full of flavor, but they’re tough and fibrous. Slice out the cores and save them to the side.
We’ll use them to make pineapple juice and can the pineapple in its own juice. That makes for much more flavorful canned pineapple, without added sugar.
Chop the pineapple into pieces. Large chunks work, or I prefer smaller chunks because they’ll be ready to top a pizza for a quick weeknight dinner.
You can also mince them very small for crushed pineapple, and use it in carrot cake or hummingbird cake.
Pineapple can be raw packed or hot packed into jars for home canning. That means that you can either put the pineapple chunks directly into the jars raw, or you can simmer the pineapple for 10 or so minutes on the stovetop and pack it into jars hot. Either way is perfectly fine and safe.
Raw packing has the advantage of being quick and easy. Stuff the pineapple into jars, and cover with boiling water, juice or syrup. Lid up and can them in a water bath canner.
The downside is that with a raw pack, your food may discolor after a few months in the jars. Fruit, pineapple, in particular, has a lot of air inside its structure.
Some estimate that air can be as much as 30% of the total volume. When you pack it raw, that air stays inside the canning jar and will cause the food to discolor over time, and can impact flavor.
Hot packing is supposed to yield a better result for pineapple in particular, according to the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension. If you’re hot packing, simmer the pineapple in your canning liquid of choice (water, juice or syrup) for 10 minutes before packing into jars. This drives off the extra air in the pineapple and ensures a better-finished product.
I’ve had great results with a raw pack, and packing hot pineapple into jars can be messy. It’s also hard to stuff the jars completely full when you’re dealing with hot pineapple and syrup together. I haven’t had issues with discoloration, but they never last more than a few months in my pantry.
Choose what’s best for you, but know that if you’re planning for long-term preservation, hot pack is a better choice.
Raw pineapple in half-pint jars for water bath canning.
Choices for Canning Liquid
With pineapple, you have a lot of choices for canning liquid.
- Water
- Juice – Pineapple, apple or grape
- Extra light syrup, light syrup or medium syrup
You can just simply pack the pineapple into the water, but that’s going to cause a lot of the pineapple flavor to leach out into the water. Juice, such as pineapple juice, apple juice or grape juice also works.
I avoid using syrup because pineapple is sweet enough. Canning it in syrup makes it over the top sweet, and it doesn’t taste like fruit anymore (to me anyway).
If you do choose to use syrup, here is how to calculate the added sugar for each type.
The first time I canned pineapple, I bought a jar of pineapple juice. That stuff is expensive, about $7 per bottle, which increased the cost substantially.
The second time, I tried running a pineapple through my home juicer. It worked well, and the yield was high. I only needed to juice 1 pineapple for every 4 I wanted to can.
This time, I tried another method. I boiled the pineapple cores in water, which extracted the pineapple flavor and a lot of the sugars.
I didn’t have to sacrifice a pineapple to the juicer, and I still got the same pineapple flavor. Simmer the chopped pineapple cores in water for about 10 minutes, and then strain out the cores.
I found that I needed about 1/3 of a cup of added liquid for each half-pint jar, and each pineapple yielded roughly 5 to 6 half-pints. Estimate that you’ll need 2 to 2.5 cups of boiling liquid for each pineapple you can.
It’s always better to have too much than not enough. Running out of canning liquid mid-batch is frustrating!
Cooking pineapple cores in water to extract their juice. I’ve found this to be the most flavorful and economical way to can pineapple.
Canning Pineapple
Canning pineapple at home preserves this tasty fruit on the pantry shelf for extended periods and tastes much better than store bought.
Ingredients
- Whole Raw Pineapples (one for every 2-3 pints jars to can)
- Water, Juice or Syrup (roughly 2 to 2.5 cups per pineapple)
Instructions
- Chop the pineapple into chunks. Large hunks, small chunks or minced for crushed pineapple. Choose your preference.
- For hot pack, bring the pineapple to a boil in the canning liquid of your choice and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Pack the pineapple and liquid into jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
- Can in a water bath canner, processing 15 minutes for half-pints or pints, and 20 minutes for quarts (adjusting for altitude).
- Remove from the canner and allow to cool to room temperature. Check jars for seal and use any unsealed jars immediately
**For a raw pack, pack raw pineapple into jars and cover with boiling liquid.
Notes
Adjust total canning time for altitude. Basic times are for below 1000 feet. For 1000 ft to 3000 ft, times change to 20 and 25 minutes. Then 3000 to 6000 to 20 and 30 minutes. Finally 25 and 35 minutes above 6000 ft.
More Fruit Canning Recipes
Looking for more canning recipes? Here are a few more fruits to can at home:
Julie
Mmmmmmmm!! These look delicious! I’m going to put this on my to-do list. Seems easy enough! Thank you!
Jenna
After cooking the cores to make the canning liquid could i just throw it all in the Vitamix and use?
Ashley Adamant
Yeah, that would work. Your canning juice would be a bit pulpy that way instead of clear, but you’d get more flavor incorporating them with the Vitamix. Just make sure you add enough water that it’s still a canning juice with the cores blended up, instead of a slurry/jam consistency. Great idea!
Monica
Can I cold pack without any added liquid?
Ashley Adamant
No. You need some kind of liquid in with the pineapple.
Cydni
Do the pineapples need to be ripe before canning? They were on sale for $.98 so I bought 3, 1 to eat now and 2 for canning. However they’re not ripe yet. So should I wait before canning them?
Ashley Adamant
Ideally, they should be just barely ripe. Overripe pineapples will fall apart, and underripe ones won’t have the best flavor. That said, a bit underripe can still be canned since the cooking helps to soften them. You might want to add a tiny bit of sugar though since they won’t be as sweet as a ripe one. But yes, ideally you’d wait and let them ripen.
Lisa
Lived in Hawaii for years….once picked, pineapples WILL NOT ripen further. (it may get softer, but will not get sweeter) The best pineapples to buy are a uniform golden color (not green). When you get them home, stand them on their “head” overnight. It helps redistribute the juices from the bottom where they settle thanks to gravity.
Donna
Thank you for your comment Lisa. I didn’t know that.
Joseph
Thank you for your post, we will try it!
Kristin
Found $1.99 pineapples the other day at the store, so I tried your method for caning. Everything went great, and all the jars sealed! (Yeah!) I haven’t tried a jar yet, but they look delicious!
Peg
Will be trying this recipe this weekend using the pineapple core water and raw pack method. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!
Admin
You’re welcome!
Debra
You give times for half pints and quarts but not pints. What time do you recommend for pints?
Ashley Adamant
Oops, thanks, I’ll correct that. Process times for both pints and half pints are the same.
Debra
Thank you!
Administrator
You’re welcome.
joan
Doing this this week. This is probably obvious to canners, but should the jars be hot when I fill them?
Thanks.
Cheers
Joan
Administrator
Yes, you do want your jars to be hot.
Sadie
What can the extra juice be used for? (juice after simmering cores).
Ashley Adamant
Hmm…good question. I bet it’d make a really good pineapple rice!
Julie
Use it for jello
Mike
Can the juice derived from the pineapple cors be preserved by canning also.
Administrator
You certainly could although I am not sure what the taste would be with just the cores themselves. I think it would be worth trying.
Rochelle
Can u use canned pineapple juice to can fresh pineapple???
Administrator
Yes you can but it does increase the cost significantly.
Cindy
Can you use citric acid to prevent browning, should you and id so about how much? Thaks Ashley, I think your blog is amazing by the way!!
Ashley Adamant
I’ve honestly never had fresh pineapple brown, it seems to have enough acid in there to prevent oxidation all on its own.
Patricia Pride
Hello. I’ve used bottled lemon juice, sugar, and water to make a light simple syrup. This also helps eliminate browning of pineapple. I use about a quarter cup of lemon juice to 2 cups sugar and 9 cups of water.
Cindy S
Came across this and found pineapples fort $2.99. I bought just one to try. Used the core to make the syrup. Great money savers. I got 5 Half pints from the one. Will go back and buy more! Easy directions to follow.
Ashley Adamant
Wonderful, so glad it worked out for you!
Tricia
How long can you store after sealing?
Administrator
It’s often recommended to eat within a year for the best quality. After that, the quality will begin to deteriorate but will still be safe to eat as long as it is stored properly and none of the seals have been broken.
Moksha Essentials
Love this stuff ! As I was working on getting more things about this, the article has helped me to solve various clarifications. Thanks for the great content.
Administrator
You’re welcome. So glad you enjoyed the content.
Jessica
Can we use frozen pineapple?
Administrator
I think frozen pineapple should be fine although I haven’t personally tried it. Let us know how it works for you.
Michele
Did you find out if you could use frozen pineapple?
Jeanne White
I did the hot pack method today. I thought I did a good job of preparing my pineapples and had gotten rid of the eyes. The jars look beautiful and I see that in my left over juice there are some of those little pineapple seeds. Preboiling must have the benefit of removing these as they are on the bottom of the pan.
Administrator
That’s very interesting.
Kriti
It’s a wonderful work you have done. If we do raw pack, how much should be shelf life, I opened a pack after 4 months( done by raw method), it was wonderful. In how many months, left over air will discolor pineapple?
Administrator
It is possible that they may discolor more with raw pack versus hot pack but that doesn’t mean that they always will. The shelf life doesn’t really change with the discoloration, they just may not look as appealing.
Cris
This recipe turned out so very well!! We boiled the cores to make our juice and even had a little left over that we chilled and drank. So very good. And this recipe was so easy to follow. Can’t thank you enough!
Administrator
You’re welcome. So glad you enjoyed the recipe.
Mary
Hi Ashley…love your site! thank you! Wanted to tell you about how I prepare the pineapple. Easy, fast and reduces waste.
Cut off top and bottom of pineapple.
take a thin slice off one side of the standing pineapple (to keep it from rolling) lay the pineapple down with that small cut on the cutting board.
slice rounds 1/2 inch or less on the whole pineapple. (hang on to the pineapple with a tea towel if it rolls)
I have a biscuit cutter set with several sizes. The smallest size is perfect for removing the core from each slice.
Then I use a thin bladed knife to trim around the outside of that 1/2 circle of pineapple
So easy and finished in no time. Boil the cores and leave the circles of pineapple whole, or cut into chunks.
Nothing tastes better than a warm pineapple upside down cake when the snow is flying outside…Thank you again for your site. Keep up the great work. Mary
Administrator
You’re very welcome. So glad you’re enjoying the site and thank you for sharing your pineapple tips.