Canning ground pork

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Home canned ground pork is great to have on hand to toss at the last minute into pasta sauces, make tacos from or to add to stir-fried rice, casseroles, etc.

Freeze the broth from the jar; it’s great for soups.

Quantities of ground pork needed

On average, as a very rough guideline, expect to need about 500 g (1 lb) of ground pork per half-litre (US pint) jar of canned ground pork.

The recipe

Jar size choices: Either half-litre (1 US pint) OR 1 litre (1 US quart)

Processing method: Pressure canning only

Yield: varies

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

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Pressure canning ground pork

Course Meat

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes

Calories 143 kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

Spray a skillet with cooking spray or heat a small amount of fat or oil in it.
Brown the ground meat in the skillet in batches; transfer the browned meat to a covered bowl or pot to keep hot.
Pack meat loosely into half-litre (1 US pint) OR 1 litre (1 US quart) jars.
Leave 3 cm (1 inch) headspace.
Optional: a pinch of salt or non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub per jar.
Top jars up with a boiling liquid (water from a kettle, stock, or tomato juice) maintaining 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 (US pint) jars for 75 minutes OR 1 litre (US quart) jars for 90 minutes.

Processing guidelines below are for weighted-gauge pressure canners. See also if applicable: Dial-gauge pressures.

Jar Size	Time	0 to 300 m (0 - 1000 feet) pressure	Above 300 m (1000 ft) pressure
1/2 litre (1 US pint)	75 mins	10 lbs	15 lb
1 litre (1 US quart)	90 mins	10 lbs	15 lb

Reference information

How to pressure can.

When pressure canning, you must adjust the pressure for your altitude.

More information on canning meat.

More information about Salt-Free Canning in general.

Recipe notes

The purpose of browning the meat first is so that it won’t clump and form a huge solid dense mass in the year. You must brown it first; there’s no option for raw packing it owing to the risk of it clumping.
You may use a microwave to bring to a boil any canning liquid such as stock or tomato juice — be careful when moving heated liquid from a microwave as the liquid may surge.

Recipe source

This recipe comes from the USDA Complete Guide (2015).

Ground or Chopped Meat. In: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Complete guide to home canning. Agriculture information bulletin No. 539. 2015. Page 5- 6.

Nutrition

Nutritional information based on extra-lean ground pork being used.

Serving size: 100 g (3.5 oz), drained (about one-fifth of a 1/2 litre / US pint jar, if 500 g went into the jar.)

143 calories, 57 mg sodium
Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 3 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.

Do you have to use liquid in the jar?

Regardless of what you may see elsewhere on the Internet, there is no dry-pack option that is guaranteed to be safe. The recommendations were developed with a liquid in the jar to ensure a safe and even distribution of heat.

But it’s the work of seconds to drain the jar when opening it, and you get what is essentially free, fat-free and added-salt free pork stock to freeze for use in soups, stocks, gravies etc.

It’s also nice how any residual fat floats to the top, so you can easily skim it off when opening the jar. You can discard it, or, add to a tub in the fridge or freezer and use as pure lard.