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.
See also: canning ground beef.
Please note: dry-canning any ground meat is expressly recommended against by the National Center for Home Food preservation for safety reasons.
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
Pressure canning ground pork
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.
Nutrition
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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ½ 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.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
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 ½ 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.
Kimba
I have a question. I canned ground pork a year ago. It looks like it shrank to half full in the jar. Is it still okay to eat? Or did I do something wrong?
Megasaurus
Thank you! I got a steal of a deal on 50lbs of ground pork, and not a square inch of freezer space to spare. I put up 36 pints and 4 half pints and a fair amount more cooked and more still in the fridge. Take that inflation!
Having some sense of agency and ability to work toward my own food security by being able to preserve in the midst of these difficult times is so empowering. I love canning!
Jeffrey Zhu
I do this all the time now