Your garden is thriving and you are close to having an abundance of produce flooding your kitchen. But what do you do with all this produce. Today I am going to share my favorite canning cookbooks for preserving food at home!
The last book I am sharing has other methods of preserving, not just canning recipes. These home food preservation books will give you all the recipes you need to can, freeze, or dehydrate your own food so you can have an abundant pantry.
My 6 favorite canning cookbooks for preserving food.
There are so many options nowadays to choose from. You have to sift through what books are worth the money, will they have recipes your family will like, and are the recipes shared beneficial to your family.
Not all canning cookbooks are the same so getting recommendations from people you trust is so helpful. That is why I created this list. To take the guess work out for you!
These 6 canning cookbooks for preserving food at home, are books that I have found myself pulling out of frequently! They share simple recipes for first-time canners and are just a great resource when you are learning to put up your own food.
Make sure to also watch my video on preparing for canning season, so you can get all your canning supplies ready!
Best Beginner Canning Cookbooks:
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This first book, is probably one I pull from the most. It is one of the most commonly used canning cookbooks out there, with hundreds of recipes. Any time you think of canning I am sure you think of ball canning.
This book will give you the basics for so many kinds of food.
It’s no wonder it made the list for favorite canning cookbooks.
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine
The ball books would definitely be high on the list of favorite books for preserving. Mostly because it gives you a recipe for virtually all foods. Both high-acid foods (for water bath canning) and low acid foods (for pressure canning). Although the pressure canning section isn’t as big as the water bath canning section.
It’s like a one stop shop!
Almost all the recipes in this book only require a water bath canner and you can find anything from jams and jellies to sauces and condiments.
If you are just getting started this is great, because water-bath canning equipment doesn’t require a big investment. You can get set up with a canner and supplies for under $100.
If you only buy one book off this list, this would be the one I would recommend.
There are 400 recipes in it, so it opens a new world of canning for you. Along the side bar next to each recipe, there are tips and tricks to use when canning that specific food. Which is so helpful for beginners!
In the back of the book, it does have some pressure canning recipes, so you get both style of canning in one book.
We love to can the apple pie filling, all the jams/jellies, salsa, barbecue sauce, pizza sauce and more from this cookbook!
It is probably the most comprehensive guide you can get.
The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning, by Diane Devereaux
Once I felt confident with water bath canning, I knew I needed to learn to pressure can.
Thankfully my pastor’s sweet wife offered to let me borrow her pressure canner to learn before purchasing one. I was able to use it for years before finally buying my own!
Learning to pressure can totally changed what types of food I could put on my shelves. Putting up ready made meals, meats, beans, and broths was a game changer!
But there was one problem…. I needed more recipes under my belt.
When I found this cookbook I was so thankful! These recipes are simple meals that my family will actually enjoy.
One of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started canning, was taking the time to prepare and can foods my family doesn’t even like and wouldn’t eat! I still have jars of sweet peppers and onions on my shelf from 2019 because no one likes them and I have not figured out a way to use them up.
So I knew I needed recipes that were our style of food, but also recipes that were simple.
Some of our favorite recipes from this canning book are pressure canned black beans (or any beans for that matter), chicken stock, hearty hamburger stew, loaded baked potato soup, and meat/bean chili.
The above list is some that I have made and love, but there is plenty that I have flagged in the book to make in the coming months!
Canning & Preserving for Beginners, by Rockridge Press
This was one of the first canning cookbooks that I got. I saw the word beginners in the title and thought, “that’s me!”
I wanted a book that wasn’t overwhelming and that had step-by-step instructions. After all, I was an amateur and didn’t have a clue what I was doing.
This book falls into my list of, favorite canning cookbooks because it is simple to follow and not very thick. Which makes it not seem so overwhelming.
The Ball book is so good, but can feel really overwhelming with so many recipes to choose from.
I love to make the classic pickle recipe, the refrigerator pickle recipe, apple butter, and salsa verde from this book.
It has some water bath canning recipes and pressure canning recipes. So you get a little taste of both but they are simple to follow and foods that you would normally eat.
Naturally Sweet Food in Jars, by Marisa McClellan
It was the end of the season a few years ago when I stumbled across this book. I had already put up a lot of my summer garden so it came too late in the season to use that year, but I have been pulling recipes out of it ever since.
This cookbook gives you recipes to all your favorite foods, but with natural sweeteners in place of sugar.
If you are like me, you probably get a pit in your stomach when making some delicious homemade jam and it calls for you to add 6+ cups of sugar. It just doesn’t feel right to take my nutrient dense produce that I grew myself and add so much sugar to it.
I love that this book gives you options to use honey, maple syrup, and even coconut sugar in all your most common recipes! Basically it shares tasty ways to preserve some of your favorite foods without using cane sugar.
I have made strawberry maple butter and ketchup from this book and they both were delicious! This year I have bigger plans to try new recipes from this cookbook. It doesn’t have many recipes as some of the cookbooks, but it still has plenty of recipes.
The Amish Canning Cookbook, by Georgia Varozza
One winter I was doing some research on different preserving books and came across this one. I am a book junkie and it came highly recommended. Probably because a cooking enthusiast Georgia Varozza is the author. I wanted to learn from her!
I did a search on Amazon and quickly realized I needed it.
In the introduction the author says, “you won’t find anything fancy here, but you will find recipes guaranteed to please your family.”
BINGO!
Those are the kind of recipes I am looking for!
The recipes in this book are simple and very easy to follow. It has both water bath canning and pressure canning. I also love that it has a chapter in the back of the book, What Went Wrong, so you can trouble shoot any of the recipes if they don’t turn out.
While I haven’t made any recipes from this one YET, it is very high on my list to pull from this summer. I have plenty recipes flagged and can not wait to get some jars on my shelf from this cookbook.
This one would definitely be high on my recommendation list as a great choice to get on your shelf.
Everything Worth Preserving, by Melissa K. Norris
When you are just starting out with this lifestyle, its best to learn from the canning experts. I would say Melissa falls into this category.
However, once I started canning I quickly learned that not all foods need to be canned. This is the best home-preserving book for this reason.
There are other forms of preservation that certain foods keep better when done. For example, my family doesn’t love canned potatoes. They just don’t taste right to us. So instead of canning them, we take our home grown potatoes and turn them into freezer hash browns.
That idea came from this cookbook.
I love this preservation book because it gives you a range of other food preservation practices. Not just canning.
It even gives you a chart with foods and the different methods of preserving them. So you don’t have to just always can your green beans. She shares how to can and how to freeze them.
There is a lot of info in this book and I highly recommend you get it on your shelf.
I have found that some of my best recipes have came from this preservation cookbook.
Now let’s get some food on our shelves using these favorite canning cookbooks for preserving food!
I can confidently say with these 6 best canning cookbooks on your shelf, you are ready to put up any food for months to come. Whether you want to water bath can, pressure can, freeze your food, or dehydrate them, these 6 favorite canning cookbooks got you covered!
Remember that BEFORE you put a garden in the ground you should be prepared and thinking about how to put the abundance up. Whether that be by dehydrating, freezing, or canning you need to be able to store produce for later so produce doesn’t go to waste.
Of the 3 preservation methods above, I prefer canning…. and these book make it that much easier!
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