Ingredients for home canning

There are many ingredients in home canning that are important, or helpful, in addition to the actual food that is being canned.

If, before you started home canning, you had a problem with spices going old on you before you could use them up, that will no longer be an issue in your life.

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1 Typical home canning staple ingredients

Typical home canning staple ingredients


 Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar is one of the many vinegars that is acceptable to use for home canning; it's also one of the more popular ones in North America.
 Calcium Chloride (aka Pickle Crisp®)
Calcium Chloride is a generic firming agent that can be used in pickling. Many people like it and swear by the results. It can help to maintain the crispness that produce has. But, it will never restore lost crispness.
 Citric acid and home canning
Citric acid is a concentrated powder that raises the acidity level of a food or solution it is added to. It also may slightly help in better keeping qualities for flavour and colour.
 Clearjel Starch Thickener
Clearjel® is a modified corn starch which the USDA uses as a thickener in some fruit pie fillings for home canning.
 Dill substitute for pickling
A look at substitutes for fresh dill in when making home-canned pickles.
 Flour and Corn Starch Use in Home Canning
It's fine to use flour and corn starch as a thickener in home canning products when modern, scientifically-tested recipes from reputable sources call for it. Use only in those recipes. 
 Herbamare® Salt Substitute
Herbamare® Sodium-Free is a high-quality salt substitute. People eating home canned products seasoned with it taste no difference between it and salt in a product.
 Home canning with herbs
Typically, it is fine to adjusting the seasoning of just about any home canning recipe using dried herbs. Here's a discussion of the issue.
 Can you use sage in home canning?
You will see in many places a recommendation not to use sage in home canned goods. It's not a safety issue, but a taste issue, reputedly. Some say it causes bitterness; some say it causes bitterness after a period of storage.
 Using bay leaves in home canning
People will debate whether or not they like to use bay leaves to season their home canning. But it's safe to do so. It's just a matter of preference. 
 Home canning with stevia
Liquid stevia can be used as an alternative sweetener in many home canning recipes.
 No Sugar Needed Pectins
There are pectins which allow you to safely make jams with low or no sugar, or alternative sweeteners. Some people feel they produce jams whose fruit taste is cleaner and brighter.
 Bernardin No Sugar Needed Pectin
Bernardin offers a "no sugar needed" pectin for use in jams and jellies. Normally sugar is required to get pectin to set, but this pectin requires no added sugar at all for the gel to happen.
 Pomona Pectin
Pomona is a brand name of no-sugar needed pectin. Instead of needing sugar and acid to cause a gel reaction, it needs calcium 
 Passata
If you are looking at making a tomato-sauce based product for home canning, instead of always buying fresh, whole tomatoes as a base it may in some instances be worth considering using tomato passata — fresh, sauce-quality tomatoes pressed through a f...
 Pickling Spice
Pickling spice is a spice mixture that can be used to add flavouring and aromatics to savoury preserves, pickles and relishes.
 Pickling vinegar
"Pickling vinegar" is an elusive term. It is not a legally-defined item with strict definitions. It can be used to mean some quite different products by various food manufacturing companies.
 The acidity of lemons and home canning
Lemon and lime juice are far more acidic than white distilled vinegar. The USDA recommends that you use bottled versions of those for an assured acidity level. Is it ever okay to use fresh instead?
 Vinegar strength in Australia and New Zealand
Standard household vinegar as sold in Australia and New Zealand is slightly weaker than that sold in other countries such as the US, Canada and England.
 Water's Role in Home Canning
Water has such a huge role in home canning, yet we take it for granted. There are three issues to consider.
 Hard water and home canning
Hard water can cause two issues in canning, though neither of them is a safety issue, thankfully.
 Vinegar in canning water
Adding vinegar to your processing water can prevent discoloration of the insides of your canners, and your canning jars going cloudy.
 Why some canning directions call for fresh water
Many pressure canning instructions for vegetables call for fresh water to be added to the canning jars, instead of using the water that the vegetables were blanched in. Why is this?

Comments

Maggie Klemm

August 02, 2017 at 5:45 pm

I’m going to try an oven roasted marinara sauce today or tomorrow that I found on the healthy canning site. I read somewhere to leave out the olive oil when canning. Is this necessary? I’d think that a little olive oil to coat the baking sheet before baking in oven would be o.k. and prevent sticking. Can I proceed using a tiny bit of olive oil? Thanks for your help.

- Healthy Canning
  
  August 03, 2017 at 7:09 am
  
  It is fine to use oil in tested recipes that call for it. See: https://www.healthycanning.com/fat-and-oil-in-home-canning/

Typical home canning staple ingredients

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