This list of my favorite books about canning will help you create new and delicious recipes for preserving fresh vegetables, fruits, and meats to serve during meals or give as gifts conveniently.

12 best books about canning pictures

Can I use my grandsmas old cookbooks?

In short, it’s not safe. Many recipes passed down through the years or found in older cookbooks do not include instructions for processing. The foods are usually canned by the open kettle method, sealed, and stored. Foods prepared in this manner present a serious health risk — particularly low acid foods. All high acid foods should be processed in a water bath canner or pressure canner, and all low acid foods in a pressure canner to minimize food spoilage risk. If you have a recipe safety question, always check with The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Learning to can information

If you are new to canning, I suggest you read a few of my posts on Canning 101. They will help you learn with confidence the art of canning and preserving.

  • Canning For Beginners: Learning the basic steps of canning for beginners is a fun and economical way to make great tasting fresh foods available to enjoy year-round.
  • A Beginner’s Guide To Canning Terms: This list of Beginner Canning Terms will help you start learning how to safely home can fruits, vegetables, and meats. Canning terms are mostly simple; however, the canning community has some terms that might be a little confusing.
  • Canning Supplies Guide: This canning supplies guide is the perfect way to start learning how to economically can your own healthy vegetables, jams, soups, and meats.
  • Water Bath Canning For Beginners: Learn water bath canning, the easiest processing method used in home canning for high acid foods such as jams, jellies, and pickles.
  • Learn How To Pressure Can: Learn how to pressure can your own meats, vegetables, and soups so you can proudly have flavorful, high-quality foods that save money, build self-reliance, and create quick and easy meals on busy nights.

💭 Tips for using the books

I have found that it’s good to write notes in my cookbooks. It is helpful to write the date of the first time a recipe is tried and how it turned out. I will come back and grade it by my family’s reaction sometimes too. I note any substitution I used, for example, yellow tomatoes vs. red or Vidalia onion vs. a red onion.

It is also helpful to sit down and become familiar with the book, look through the recipes, and read the author’s notes. I then use post-it notes to mark the recipes I want to try first.

Best canning books for beginners

The best way to start is with jams, jellies, and pickles when you first learn to can. They are simple recipes that are great to have on hand or give as gifts.

Ball Canning Back to Basics: A Foolproof Guide to Canning Jams, Jellies, Pickles

If you can boil water, you can make your own delectable jams and jellies, try your hand at fresh-pack pickling, and jar savory sauces. Ball Canning Back to Basics focuses on the building-block techniques and easy, classic recipes every canner should know. The book begins with in-depth information on water bath canning, the equipment you need, and food safety guidance.

Beginner’s Guide to Canning: 90 Easy Recipes to Can

For many people, canning conjures memories of cozy kitchens filled with fresh flavors. Whether you’re picking up this time-honored tradition again or just starting, The Beginner’s Guide to Canning teaches you everything you need to know about water bath and pressure canning, with plenty of recipes for jams, pickles, vegetables, soups, and more.

Canning and Preserving for Beginners: The Complete Guide to Preserving Foods Using Both Water Bath and Pressure Canner

Canned food helps you save money and preserve essential vitamins in your foods. Thus allowing you to retain more nutrients in the food for your body and eat healthier without spending all your day in the kitchen. This indispensable guide provides you with step-by-step, comprehensive information. Also, how to safely can foods using both a water bath and pressure canner.

CANNING AND PRESERVING FOR BEGINNERS: A Step-By-Step Guide On How To Can Fruits, Meats, Vegetables, Jams, And Jellies

Luisa Florence will teach you how to have an essential pantry with the 200 preserves that cannot be missing in your cupboard. Perhaps, the most important reason to can and maintain food yourself is that you know the ingredients that go into your food. Today very frequently and for different causes, meats and vegetables are being recalled. We, as customers, do not know which pesticides have been used on the goods we buy. When you can your own, you know what you are eating.

Newest Ball canning books

Ball Blue Book comes out new every few years. Right now, you can get a copy of their 2020 updated book.

Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving

The latest edition( 2020) of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. The 37th edition is filled to the brim with more than 75 new recipes. These are handy tips and tricks for better fresh preservation. Every new edition of this guide is a chance to reflect contemporary tastes. But we are making sure never to lose sight of the values that make fresh preserving so special-after all. The Ball Blue Book Guide has been around since 1909.

Ball canning books

You can’t go wrong with a Ball-published canning book. Be sure to only used recipes from updated books, though. There has been more research for best practices in canning safety, and books before the 80s tend to be outdated.

The All-New Ball Book Of Canning And Preserving: Over 350 of the Best Canned, Jammed, Pickled, and Preserved Recipes

From the experts at Jarden Home Brands, makers of Ball canning products, comes the first truly comprehensive canning guide created for today’s home cooks. This modern handbook boasts more than 350 of the best recipes. They are ranging from jams and jellies to jerky, pickles, salsas, and more-including extender recipes. They create brand new dishes using your freshly preserved farmer’s market finds or vegetable garden bounty.

Best canning books

This is my favorite canning book I have on my shelf. It has the largest number of our family’s favorite canning recipes. The Peach BBQ Sauce is one that I make every year for our family.

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving 

The bestselling Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving has been broadly updated to reflect changes over the last 15 years. There are new recipes and larger sections on low sugar and fermentation.

Putting Up: A Year-Round Guide to Canning in the Southern Tradition

This is my next favorite go-to cookbook for canning recipes. I use this book throughout the year, not just during harvest season. In Putting Up, author Steve Dowdney colorfully and descriptively guides readers safely through the home canning process. In his plainspoken narrative, Dowdney explains how to put up crops harvested during each month. Includes 65 of the most popular and delicious recipes he produces for his successful canning business. Also included is a resource section that contains information on where all essential canning supplies can be purchased. More than just a how-to manual, Putting Up is a wonderful guide for canners and non-canners alike. It is chock full of anecdotes, stories, and vignettes of the long-gone agrarian south.

Putting Up More: A Guide to Canning Jams, Relishes, Chutneys, Pickles, Sauces, and Salsas

This sequel to the first book, Putting Up, provides additional recipes and excellent advice on how to can jam safely, relishes, chutneys, pickles, sauces, and salsas.

Also included are the author’s personal notes, thoughts, and experiences on each easy-to-follow recipe. The exceptional recipes help you utilize the produce you have preserved and stored in the pantry. It has plentiful breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack suggestions.

Canning for a new generation

Canning and preserving have seemed to take a backseat in our fast-paced world of take-out and microwaves for the past few generations. However, there is a trend going on, getting back to our roots. Taking care of ourselves instead of relying on the local grocery all the time. Many people want to create their own healthy foods with no preservatives. Canning is fast becoming the answer to a sustainable lifestyle.

Tart and Sweet: 101 Canning and Pickling Recipes for the Modern Kitchen

The craft of canning has undergone a renaissance, attracting celebrity chefs, home cooks, and backyard gardeners alike. Canned and pickled foods have become a cornerstone of the artisanal food movement, providing an opportunity to savor seasonal foods long after harvest and create bold new flavors.

Tart and Sweet by Kelly Geary and Jessie Knadler is the essential canning manual for the 21st century, providing a modern tutorial on small-batch canning accompanied by easy-to-follow photos and instructions, as well as more than 101 sweet and savory recipes for preserved fruits and pickled.

Not Your Mama’s Canning Book: Modern Canned Goods and What to Make with Them 

Rebecca will not only teach you how to can food with basic recipes, but she will provide alternative versions to take your canned food flavors up a notch. She will also provide recipes that highlight these unique flavor combinations so you can make use out of every canned good! This book has something for everyone, from jams, jellies, and preserves to pickles and relishes to drunken fruit and pressure canning. Some recipes will require the use of pressure canners, but not all.

Canning in the Modern Kitchen: More Than 100 Recipes for Canning and Cooking Fruits, Vegetables, and Meats

Remember, canning isn’t just about putting food in jars and letting it sit and sit—it’s about sealing in the taste of each season and making food from scratch with more interesting and unique flavors. Canning in the Modern Kitchen is ideal for a novice canner or an experienced cook searching for new recipes and novel techniques.

Canning for a New Generation: Updated and Expanded Edition: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry

The craft of canning has undergone a renaissance, attracting celebrity chefs, home cooks, and backyard gardeners alike. Canned and pickled foods have become a cornerstone of the artisanal food movement, providing an opportunity to savor seasonal foods long after harvest and create bold new flavors.

Tart and Sweet by Kelly Geary and Jessie Knadler is the essential canning manual for the 21st century, providing a modern tutorial on small-batch canning accompanied by easy-to-follow photos and instructions and more than 101 sweet and savory recipes for preserved fruits and pickled.

Water bath canning books

WECK Home Preserving: Made-from-Scratch Recipes for Water-Bath Canning, Fermenting, Pickling

WECK shows readers how to preserve the harvest with their beautifully designed, reusable glass jars. In WECK® Home Preserving, Stephanie has created a step-by-step guide to preserving even more with WECK jars and has developed seventy-five delicious, small-batch recipes for water-bath canning, fermenting, and pickling with them. Some recipes don’t even require any processing at all!

In case you are not familiar with WECK jars, these are great jars to use for gift giving. They have that homemade charm but perform well as a preserving vessel.

Pressure canning books

The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning: Everything You Need to Know to Can Meats, Vegetables, Meals in a Jar

With The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning, you will discover the ease of pressure canning, understand the science behind safe food preservation, and enjoy delicious recipes for stocking your kitchen and feeding your family.

Pressure Canning Cookbook For Beginners: The Complete Pressure Canning Guide to Affordably Stockpile 

The Complete Pressure Canning Guide to Affordably Stockpile a Lifesaving Supply of Nutritious, Delicious, Shelf-Stable Foods! Learn how to pressure can meats, veggies, and fruit.

Homestead canning books

The Homestead Canning Cookbook: •Simple, Safe Instructions from a Certified Master Food Preserver

Certified master food preserver and cooking enthusiast Georgia Varozza wants to show how safe and easy canning your favorite foods can be. She will teach you the basics, including how to fit the process into your busy life, the equipment you’ll need, and step-by-step instructions for both water-bath and pressure canning.

Prepper’s Canning Cookbook: A Beginners Guide on How To Can, Jar, Preserve, Pickle, Ferment, and Freeze Foods

Canning for Beginners provides a different view on the importance of prepping meals & foods and preserving them for the long haul. It details various processes and has step-by-instructions making learning easy and enjoyable.

More recipes for canning and perserving

  • Canned Chili Recipe: This homemade Canned Chili Recipe is an easy way to make a big batch of delicious chili for quick-serve meals on a cold and busy night.
  • Canned Cowboy Candy: Canned Cowboy Candy is the perfect way to preserve a bunch of jalapenos in an addictive sweet and spicy sauce. Perfect on burgers, Mexican foods, in dips, and pimento cheese spread.
  • Canned Vegetable Soup: Home-canned vegetable soup is a flavorful, high-quality soup that saves money, builds self-reliance, and creates quick and easy meals.
  • Canning Chickpeas: Canning chickpeas yourself yields a superior product and opens the door to creating unique flavors not found in common grocery store cans of chickpeas.
  • Canning Tomato Soup with Fresh Tomatoes Recipe: Can up a batch of the best homemade tomato soup to enjoy all winter long using this Canning Tomato Soup with Fresh Tomatoes Recipe.
  • Pressure Canning Potatoes: Pressure canning potatoes is easy and yields delicious cooked potatoes ready to use for quick meals, soups, or stews on busy nights and is a great way to keep your food budget low.