This delicious beef in wine sauce is truly luxurious, gourmet-level home canning.
Serve it over mashed potato. Or, try serving it over Squash and Carrot Mash made with your home canning.
This recipe appears (as of 2016) in all three of the main private-sector home canning books: Ball Blue Book, Ball / Bernardin Complete, and the Bernardin Guide.
You can reduce the salt, which is just there for seasoning, and add it instead if you wish at the table.
You may wish to double or triple this recipe to get a full canner load: if so, just do your calculations on paper first before proceeding so that you aren’t trying to do mental gymnastics in the thick of things.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Half-litre (US pint / 16 oz) OR litre (US quart / 32 oz)
Processing method: Pressure canning only
Yield: 3 x half-litre (pint) OR 1 x litre (US quart) jars
Headspace: 3 cm (1 inch)
Processing pressure: 10 lbs (69 kPa) weighted gauge, 11 lbs (76 kpa) dial gauge (adjust pressure for your altitude when over 300 metres / 1000 feet.)
Processing time: Half-litres (pints) 75 minutes; litres (quarts) 90 minutes
If you don’t have a pressure canner, you can freeze this in plastic containers or straight-sided jars with no shoulders. (Water-bath canning is not acceptable for safety reasons.)
Beef in Wine Sauce
Ingredients
- 150 g apple (shredded. 1 cup / 5 oz. Measured after prep. About 1 large.)
- 100 g carrot (shredded. 1 cup / 4 oz. Measured after prep. About 2 medium.)
- 100 g onion (sliced. ¾ cup / 4 oz. Measured after prep. 1 medium onion)
- 1 kg stewing beef (2 lbs)
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 175 ml water (¾ cup / 6 oz)
- 125 ml red wine (½ cup / 4 oz)
- 1 teaspoon salt OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub
- 2 cloves garlic (peeled and minced)
- 2 beef bouillon cubes
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet (optional)
Instructions
- Wash, peel, core and shred the apples. Put in a large pot.
- Wash and peel the carrots. Wash again, then shred. Add to the large pot.
- Wash, peel, then slice the onions. Add to the large pot.
- Cut the stewing beef into 3 cm (1 inch) cubes.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan. Add the stewing beef in batches, brown it, add to the large pot.
- Add all remaining ingredients to the pot.
- EITHER pressure cook mixture for 7 to 10 minutes (see recipe notes) OR bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer, and let simmer covered until meat is just tender and mixture thickens a bit. About 1 hour depending on the meat you are using.
- Remove bay leaves and discard.
- Jar size choices: half-litre (1 US pint) or 1 litre (US quart)
- Ladle mixture evenly into heated jars.
- Leave 3 cm (1 inch) headspace.
- Debubble; adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Processing pressure: 10 lbs (69 kPa) weighted gauge, 11 lbs (76 kpa) dial gauge (adjust pressure for your altitude when over 300 metres / 1000 feet.)
- Processing time: half- litre (1 US pint) 75 minutes; 1 litre (US quart) 90 minutes.
Nutrition
See also if applicable: Dial Gauge Pressures.
Reference information
How to pressure can.
When pressure canning, you must adjust the pressure for your altitude.
For salt substitute, Herbamare Sodium-Free was used.
Recipe notes
- A Moulinex food mill or food processor can make quick work of the shredding and slicing.
- Don’t worry about the apple browning; it is going to come out brown anyway.
- The beef can be a tougher cut such as round, chuck, etc.
- Instead of 2 cloves of garlic, you can use 1 teaspoon of minced garlic from a bottle.
- Instead of the bouillon cubes, you can use 2 teaspoons of bouillon powder or 4 teaspoons of liquid bouillon.
- The Kitchen Bouquet just gives the mixture a darker colour. Feel free to omit if it’s not something you have in the house.
- Pressure cooker pre-cooking: You can save a lot of cooking fuel by using a pressure cooker to pre-cook the mixture instead of simmering it. To get the meat tender but not fully cooked, pressure cook the mixture on high (13 to 15 lbs) for 5 to 7 minutes (around 10 minutes in an electric pressure cooker). (Don’t do longer; 15 minutes would fully cook it to falling-apart texture. Remember, it will get cooked further as a by-product of the canning process later.)
The shredded apple
The shredded carrot
The sliced onion
Usage notes
Empty jar into a microwave-safe jug or container. Stir in cornstarch (aka cornflour in the UK) in the proportions below. Zap on high one minute. Stir, zap another 2 minutes on high. Serve hot:
- Per half-litre / pint jar, add 2 teaspoons cornstarch;
- Per litre / quart jar, add 4 teaspoons cornstarch.
Note: if you want a thicker gravy, use 1 heaping tablespoon of cornstarch per half-litre (pint).
Recipe source
Ball Blue Book. Muncie, Indiana: Healthmark LLC / Jarden Home Brands. Edition 37. 2014. Page 103.
Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto: Robert Rose. 2015. Page 408.
Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Bernardin Ltd. 2013. Page 97.
Modifications: none
- The Complete says to leave apple unpeeled. Ball Blue Book says to peel the apple. Bernardin Guide doesn’t say.
- The Complete and the Blue Book call for the cornstarch to be added after opening a jar.
- Bernardin Guide calls for an extra ¼ cup of water, and for that to be mixed with 5 tsp cornstarch and added to mixture before canning. Bernardin online has since revised that, leaving the total water at ¾ cup but removing the cornstarch. Even though the cornstarch was lab-tested, there was a sustained attack on Bernardin for it by the Safe Canning Police in the fall of 2014, illustrating perhaps the principle of how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing!
Nutrition
Serving size: 1 cup (250 ml)
Regular version
Per 1 cup (250 ml): 364 calories, 709 mg sodium
No-added salt version
Per 1 cup (250 ml): 364 calories, 322 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
Novice canner
Could I add mushrooms to this before jarring?
Healthy Canning
Add mushrooms upon opening the jars for use. It’s not safe to be adding more solid ingredients to pressure canning recipes, as you are impacting the density that was tested for safety.
Mrs. Laura Caldwell
I’m trying this recipe for the first time, and I ran out of liquid I’m hoping that warming up some beef broth to reach 1 inch of headspace in each one will be ok.
I quadrupled the recipe (because that’s how much beef I had) and ended up with 6 quarts. I might have been able to stuff everything within 5 quarts, but I didn’t want to risk siphoning.
Healthy Canning
If you have bouillon powder or liquid, just whip up more broth as needed. You can even just use plain boiling water in a pinch.
Grammy's Grub
I happened upon your blog while researching Beef in Wine Sauce canning recipe. I love how you’ve laid everything out and the thorough information.
Can you advise how to alternately flavor this recipe in stead of using bouillon cubes?
Healthy Canning
Instead of the beef bouillon cubes, for flavour you could try Lea & Perrins, or Maggi, or Kitchen Bouquet or some Bovril beef extract … or just omit the cubes.
Joan Audino
Hi,
Can I decrease the amount of onion in recipes in general? Could I leave out green peppers entirely if a recipe calls for them? New to canning and find your website outstanding. Thank you.
Healthy Canning
Both decreasing the amount of onion and leaving out green pepper are safe things to do. In pressure canning, you are lowering the density, which is always fine to do. And in regular water-bath canning, you are leaving out low-acid ingredients which is fine (it’s not fine to do the opposite, add more low-acid ingredients than called for in water-bath canning recipes.)