Canned Peach Pie Filling

Delicious homemade sugar-free peach pie filling — in jars on the shelf ready for nearly-instant desserts.

These are jars of sunshine, ready for use in pies, tarts, muffins, cobblers, crumbles, etc.

You can make this with sugar (185 calories, 2 mg sodium per 4 oz / 125 ml), or sugar-free (49 calories, 3 mg sodium.)

Please note that this recipe is for yellow peaches, not white peaches. White peaches have been found to be lower in acidity and thus problematic for home canning at the current time (2018) until testing has been done to determine adequate acidification.

The recipe for 7 jars

Jar size choices: Either half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz) OR 1 litre (US quart / 32 oz)

Processing method: Water bath or steam canning

Yield: varies

Headspace: 3 cm (1 ¼ inch)

Processing time: Either size jar 30 minutes

3.86 from 14 votes

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Peach Pie Filling

Yield: 7 x 1 litre jars (US quart)

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Peaches, Pie Filling

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 2 hours

Yield 7 1 litre jars (US quart)

Calories 398 kcal

Ingredients

• 4.5 kg peaches (Slices. 24 cups of peach slices / 6 quarts. 10 lbs. Measurements after prep.See notes)
• 250 g Clearjel ( 2 ¼ cups / 8 oz in weight)
• 1.75 kg sugar (white. 7 cups / 56 oz)
• 1 ¼ litres water (5 ¼ cups / 42 oz)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
• 1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 400 ml lemon juice (bottled. 1 ¾ cups / 14 oz)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

1. Prep the peaches (peel and pit). Slice no more than 1 cm (½ inch) thick. Set aside in a large bowl or pot of water with some lemon juice or ascorbic acid in it to prevent discolouring.

2. In a large pot, mix together the Clearjel, cinnamon, sugar, almond extract if using, and water. Set aside.

3. Boil a large pot of water (4 litres / quarts). Add about 500 g / 4 cups / 1 lb of peach slices at a time to the boiling water. When the water returns to the boil after adding the peaches, time 1 minute, then remove the peaches with a slotted spoon or strainer, and put in a bowl or pot and cover to keep warm.
4. Repeat for all peach slices.
5. Put the Clearjel mixture pot on to cook over medium high-heat.
6. When it starts to thicken, which will be very soon, add the lemon juice.
7. Cook for 1 minute.
8. Add drained peach slices, then cook for 3 more minutes, then remove from heat.
9. Ladle pie filling into half-litre (1 US pint) or 1 litre (1 US quart) jars.

10. Leave 3 cm (1 ¼ inch) headspace (some experts advise even more headspace, such as 3.5 cm / 1.5 inches, is even better.)

11. Debubble, adjust headspace.
12. Wipe jar rims.
13. Put lids on.
14. Process in a water bath or steam canner.
15. Process either size jar for 30 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude. See chart below.

The recipe for 1 jar

4.15 from 7 votes

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Peach Pie Filling (1 jar)

Per litre / quart jar ingredients

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Peaches, Pie Filling

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 30 minutes

Yield 1 litre / US quart jar

Calories 185 kcal

Ingredients

• 1.25 kg peaches (2.75 lbs. fresh peaches = 9 fresh medium-sized peaches = 3 ½ cups sliced / 750 g / 1.5 lbs after being peeled and pitted)
• 200 g sugar (white. 1 cup / 8 oz) OR 1 teaspoon liquid stevia
• 5 tablespoons Clearjel (5 tablespoons / ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon / 1.4 oz / 40 g)
• ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
• 175 ml water (¾ cup / 6 oz)
• ⅛ teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 4 tablespoons lemon juice (bottled)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

1. Same as above.

Reference information

How to water bath process.

How to steam can.

When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.

For stevia, Better Stevia liquid stevia was the stevia used.

More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.

Recipe notes

• Slice the peaches no more than 1 cm (½ inch) thick. Thicker slices may trap too much air in them, which during processing will try to escape from the jar and cause product overflow. For the same reason, don’t skip blanching the peach pieces: blanching gets air out.
• Some people advise to leave headspace of 3 cm (1 ½ inches), because of how much the mixture swells during processing. Others say excess headspace won’t help: instead, take the precautions mentioned above.
• For the peaches you need 7.5 kg (16.5 lbs) of peaches before being peeled and pitted, to make 7 litres / quarts. That’s about 60 fresh medium-sized peaches, before being prepped.
• If you want to make this out of season, you can use instead half-litre (2 cups) of drained canned or peach slices or pieces per 1 litre (1 quart) jar of pie filling you are making. Or, you could use frozen peach slices. Measure out frozen, then thaw. Include any juice from them as they thaw in the recipe. Warm either up in the microwave to the temperature that they would be after the one minute blanching in water.
• Instead of white sugar, you could use the same volume amount of Splenda® OR 6 teaspoons liquid stevia
• The mixture will be light going into the canner, but will darken up during the canning.

No substitute for Clearjel

You can’t use flour or cornstarch etc, in this USDA recipe, only Clearjel.

Pamela Schmutz at Clemson University explains:

The recipes for fruit pie fillings all use a modified food starch called Clear Jel®. This starch produces the correct thickening, even after the fillings are canned and baked. Other starches, such as cornstarch, break down and result in a runny filling. Clear Jel® must be used as the thickener in these recipes; there is no substitution. Do not use any other form of Clear Jel®, such as Instant Clear Jel®.” ^[1] Schmutz, Pamela. Pie Fillings. Georgia: Clemson University Extension. HGIC 3160. August 2010. Accessed August 2015.

How to make a pie with home-canned peach pie filling

A 1 litre (quart) jar makes an ample 20 cm (8 inch) pie.

For a 23 cm (9 inch) pie:

• 1 litre (US quart) jar makes a scant pie;
• 2 of these jars makes for a generously filled pie;
• Some people say to take a 1 litre jar, empty into a bowl, then mix in a half-litre (1 US pint) jar of plain canned peach slices, and use that, for a really fruity and generous peach pie.

Make up a pie dough for top and bottom crusts (your favourite recipe, or this one.) Line a pie dish with half the pie dough rolled out. Pour in your peach pie filling and cover with another pie crust, crimping edges to seal. Bake at 175 C (350° F) for 1 hour or until crust is golden brown.

Recipe source

Peach Pie Filling. In: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Complete guide to home canning. Agriculture information bulletin No. 539. 2015. Page 2-30.

Peach Pie Filling. In: Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 109.

Nutrition information

Tip: to keep calories low, consider using 3 or 4 layers of Phyllo Pastry sheets for your crust.

Regular version per slice

Per ⅛th pie slice, not counting any crust, half-cup (4 oz / 125 ml) of filling

• 185 calories, 2 mg sodium

Sugar-free version per slice

Per ⅛th pie slice, not counting any crust, half-cup (4 oz / 125 ml) of filling

• 49 calories, 3 mg sodium
• 1 Weight Watchers PointsPlus®

Sugar-free version per jar

1 litre (US quart / 4 cups / 32 fluid oz) jar :

• 390 calories, 20 mg sodium
• Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 11 points.

* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com

* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.

* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.