These easy canning recipes are perfect if you’re wondering how to can food for beginners. Each recipe has step by step instruction for water bath canning and steam canning and each of these easy canning recipes are FAST.

This post contains affiliate links.

First, if you’re new to canning, consider jumping into the Free Canning Basics Course. The course is bite sized email lessons delivered to your inbox, designed to help you over the most common hurdles beginners encounter.

Free Canning Basics Course

Easy Canning Recipes

Canned Peach Sauce

We’ve all heard of applesauce but what about the peach sauce? This recipe will share a great way of making peaches into a sauce that even babies can enjoy that’s thicker than just plain peach puree. Read on for the easy canning recipe with instructions for water bath canning AND steam canning! 

Raspberry Jam Recipe

Raspberry jam is one of the fastest preserves a person could make. Canning has a terrible reputation as being time-consuming- this recipe proves that canning can be quick, easy, and is a simple extension of the cooking process. Raspberry jam is a delight to give as gifts, easy to pick at U-pick farms, and delicious preserved in mason jars. 

Mixed Berry Jam

The beauty of this recipe is the naturally occurring acid that’s present in berries. This acid makes berries foolproof for beginners and makes it nearly impossible for you to make a mistake.

Applesauce Canning Recipe

This easy canning recipe will share an easy homemade applesauce recipe that you can preserve in jars with the traditional water bath instructions OR the steam canning directions. I’ll also share my favorite jars for lunch box size portions of this healthy snack! There’s options for zero added sweetener, too!

Spiced Pear Butter

Spiced pear butter is easy, grown up in taste, and flavored with maple syrup, whiskey if you please, and spices. It’s delicious in your lunch box, in between the layers of a cake (instead of frosting!), and more. Read on for this simple spiced pear butter recipe!

Strawberry Jam Canning Recipe

This easy canning recipe will share a great recipe for strawberry jam that can be halved or doubled and can be pureed smooth or not. It is versatile and easy, fragrant, and fast. Enjoy and be sure to download the printable version of the recipe to have on hand!

Tomato Jam Easy Canning Recipe

This tomato jam easy canning recipe is savory, herbal, and rich. It is amazing when paired with meat, goat cheese, pasta, and salty snacks. Read on for the step by step tutorial to make your own tomato jam!

Lime Cherries Canning Recipe

This easy canning recipe calls for stevia instead of sugar, which makes it keto-friendly, paleo-friendly, and most importantly, family-friendly. It’s a great lunch box option when canned in half-pint jars and is fast and delicious.

Carrot Pickles

Carrot pickles are one of my favorite pickles because they aren’t cucumbers.  I actually don’t care for cucumbers much, to be honest, which I know is really silly but they just don’t light my fire. Carrot pickles are always crisp and always delicious.

Helpful Posts For A Beginner

You’ll want to read these posts for pro tips on canning faster, easy canning basics, and canning the best way possible!

How To Use a Steam Canner

Steam canners are faster than traditional canners and are much easier. They can be used for any water bath canning recipe and save 25 minutes per batch. Learn how to use a steam canner in this post!

The Best Canning Jars

This post will share the best, most versatile canning jars for a new or experienced canner, that will double as food and drink containers in your home, and will help simplify your pantry and your canning process. Read on for the best canning jars!

Do You Need to Use Pickling Salt?

Many canning recipes call for pickling salt, and curious canners want to know: Do you need to use pickling salt? I’ll explain what pickling salt is when you should use it when it is okay to skip, and you’ll want to dive into canning immediately because salt is salt, Wildflowers.

What Happens if You Forget The Lemon Juice?

What Happens if You Forget the Lemon Juice? In many canning recipes, it is required that you add an acidifying ingredient like bottled lemon juice, citric acid, or vinegar. What happens if you forget? This post will explain. Spoiler alert: it ain’t pretty.

Do You Have To Simmer Your Canning Lids?

Do you have to simmer your canning lids? This post will explain whether or not you have to simmer your canning lids before putting them on your canning jars. Read on to get the scoop! Spoiler alert: The way your aunt is doing it is probably wrong!

How to Adjust for Altitude When Canning

Adjusting the processing time of your canning recipe based on your elevation or altitude sounds scary and is enough to make a beginning canner back up her canning jars and stick to freezer jam. Adjusting for altitude is actually very simple, and this post will explain exactly how to make the time adjustments so you know you are canning safely!

Canning Jump Start Guide

Did you know I’m a teacher? I love creating visual guides that help learners understand big ideas. If you’re a new canner, this guide is for you! I can help you dive into canning with a modern spin with the Canning Jump Start Guide- read on for the guide that will help you get started canning with visual guides, checklists, charts, and more so you can SEE how to get started canning!

Canning Personality Quiz

This quiz will determine your preserving personality and once you read your results, you will be given some helpful suggestions for how to improve your canning game. We are all here to grow, right? Read on for the quiz, Wildflowers!

What other easy canning recipes would you like to see? Comment below and let me know!

Be sure to Pin this post to Pinterest so you can refer back to all these resources in one place.

This tomato sauce canning recipe cuts out the most time-consuming step -peeling- and replaces it with the use of an appliance nearly every busy mom has- the blender. If you want to can healthy tomato sauce for your family, but don’t want it to take forever, this recipe is for you.

This post contains affiliate links.

First, I recommend you use a steam canner for your easy homemade tomato sauce canning instead of the traditional water bath because they save about 25 minutes for every subsequent batch. Steam canners are amazing, USDA approved pot that makes canning FAST. You can read more about them here. If you don’t have a steam canner yet, don’t worry. I have step by step directions for BOTH water bath and steam canning below.

For this easy tomato sauce canning recipe, you’ll need a blender. Instead of coring and peeling the tomatoes (which takes a long time, makes a big mess, and is honestly a real drag) you will quarter or half the tomatoes (depending on the efficacy of your blender) and blend them smooth.

Do you need to peel the tomatoes before canning?

No. In this great post by Epicurious, two important details are explained. 1. Peels can impart a bitter flavor and 2. the skin is where a ton of healthful compounds are found. Indeed, 98 percent of flavonols are found in the skin. The USDA further confirmed that thicker skins may impart a bitterness, but it is safe to include them in canning recipes.

I decided that the health benefit and time savings were worth the possible risk of bitterness, and mitigated this risk by choosing cherry tomatoes and tomatoes with thinner skins.

I found that the following recipe had NO BITTERNESS and was so much faster than peeling tomatoes. You’ll never go back to peeling, I’m sure.

Easy Tomato Sauce Canning Recipe

You will need 

12 pounds cherry or other thin-skinned tomatoes, halved or quartered

1/2 a medium onion, diced

2 teaspoons chopped garlic, jarred type is fine

2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper

citric acid – 1/2 teaspoon added to each pint jar upon lid application

1. Prepare your water bath canning pot or your steam canner. Fill the water bath canning pot with water, add 7 pint jars, and bring to a boil OR fill the steam canner to fill line and turn on low with the 7 pint jars nearby on a towel-covered counter top. 

2. Blend the tomatoes.  Start on the “food chop” setting, and then move to a “medium blend setting”, for up to two minutes or until the visible skin pieces in the blender are smaller than half an inch.

3. Combine olive oil, garlic, and onion in the bottom of a preserving pan at medium-low heat and cook till onion is soft. Add salt and pepper.

4.Pour the blended tomato on top ofthe cooked garlic & onion mixture and stir to combine. Repeat the blending process until all tomatoes are blended and added.

5. Cook on medium heat until sauce is reduced, darker red in color, about 1 hour.

6. Ladle into jars one at a time, add 1/2 teaspoon citric acid to each jar, maintain 1/2 inch headspace, apply lids and rings, and either submerge into the boiling water of the boiling water bath with a jar lifter  OR set gently on the rack of the steam canner. 

7. Process for 25 minutes PLUS 5 minutes for every 1000 ft above sea level. Remove from heat, rest jars carefully on towel covered countertop. Label cooled jars and store for up to 1 year. Yields 8-10 pints.

Download the free printable of this recipe below

Get canning jar labels for this and every recipe here!

For the Canning Jump Start Guide, a beautiful visual guide packed with canning step-by-step guidance and recipes, dive in here!

Canning with Stevia is safe because Stevia is heat stable and is approved by UC Extensions. It works best in these recipes outlined below, and this post will explain how best to replace sugar with Stevia when canning.

This post contains affiliate links.

Canning with Stevia

Canning with Stevia can be done safely and we know this because it’s been tested by University Extensions like the University of Oregon, not because I *think* it’s ok.

I’ll be the first to say that sugar is a powerful preservative, and that’s something to bear in mind as you begin canning without it. Imagine those gummy bears you find under a car seat, years old, and preserved so well. That’s sugar at work.

I started thinking about removing more and more sugar from my diet because of my migraine headaches. The jury is still out, but I know for me personally, reducing the sugar I eat is probably a step in the right direction.

Sugar is a powerful thickening agent, so you’ll want to consider that as well. If you are counting on sugar to thicken your jam or applesauce, Stevia isn’t going to thicken for you and there’s other ways to achieve the thickness you’re looking for without sugar.

Thickening Without Sugar

Liquid pectin has been a huge help, as has using a wide, shallow preserving pan to cook fruit quickly, rather than cooking for a really long time which cooks away the natural pectin.

How to Can with Stevia

Stevia is concentrated, so it is a LOT sweeter than regular table sugar. It’s also a lot more costly than regular cane sugar. To me, it is worth the trade off because I’m always canning inexpensive or free fruit, and the potential benefits of reducing sugar intake overall is worth it to me. But I’d be remiss to admit that it is more expensive than regular sugar.

In a jam recipe, for example, it’s common to see a cup-for-cup ratio of sugar to fruit. 5 cups fruit and 5 cups sugar, for example. I’ve went through a sack of sugar in a few batches of jam, at that rate. In contrast, the recipes I’ve shared (like this amazing Lime Cherries one here and the No Sugar Blood Orange Cherries, or the Peach Sauce here) you’d use a tablespoon or two of liquid Stevia.

Canning with Stevia is Safe

While sugar is a powerful preservative, that doesn’t mean it is necessary to preserve high acid fruits that you’d can in a water bath canning recipe. The Extension service has made it clear that Stevia is safe for canning because it is heat stable AND because high acid fruits don’t need sugar to be canned safely. That’s the two-part answer to the safety question.

How do you know if your fruit is high in acid?

Most fruit is naturally high in acid. The reason we associate traditional water bath canning recipes into two groups- fruit jams and veggie pickles is because fruit is naturally high in acid and veggies become acidified by the addition of vinegar.

Download this free, beautiful, and easy to use chart to see which fruits and veggies are high in acid (low numbers) and which are low in acid (higher than a 4.6) here!

Liquid or Powdered Stevia?

I like liquid Stevia because it mixes so well in whatever you’re canning- chunks of chopped fruit, smooth fruit sauce, or something in between. I’ve been really working hard on making every step of the canning process FASTER and EASIER and liquid Stevia is part of that.

Sugar Free Canning Recipes

Canned Peach Sauce

Lime Cherries

No Sugar Blood Orange Cherries

Learning How to Can Food For Beginners

Get the Canning Jump Start Guide! This collection of visual guides will help you get started confidently. You’ll SEE exactly what you should be doing, when, so you can make these delicious, healthy recipes. Get it HERE.

We’ve all heard of applesauce but what about peach sauce? This recipe will share a great way of making peaches into a sauce that even babies can enjoy that’s thicker than just plain peach puree. Read on for the easy canning recipe with instructions for water bath canning AND steam canning! 

The trouble with other plain peach sauce recipes out there is they are honestly not as thick as applesauce. Peaches are just juicier and cooking them for hours and hours can change the flavor and be a pain in the neck. The trick I’ve found with canning peaches into lunch box perfect peach sauce, with or without a little maple syrup, is to add liquid pectin. 

I really like liquid pectin for this application because it mixes seamlessly, and thickens the peach puree enough that it’s kid-friendly and spoon-ready, as opposed to smoothie consistency. It’s also plant-based, sugar-free, and prevents you from cooking for hours and hours.

You’ll notice that I forgo peeling the peaches in this recipe. I wanted a recipe that was primo for the busy mom- no time for peeling peaches here! Just cut the pits out, plop into the blender, puree till very smooth, cook with the other ingredients, add the liquid pectin, ladle into the warm jars, and process. Done!

First, if you’re new to canning, don’t worry. It’s easier than you think. The basic idea is you put hot food into warm jars, put a lid on, and put them into a hot water bath or on a steam canner rack for a set amount of time. I’m a teacher in my day job so I created a visual guide to help beginners SEE how canning works in my Canning Essentials Workbook, which you can grab here!

Canning With Stevia

Yes, you can can with Stevia. The Oregon State Extension explains more here but I’ve had great success with liquid Stevia.

Stevia is much sweeter than sugar, BUT in canning recipes, you often need to add a lot of sweetness (sometimes cups and cups of sugar) so this recipe calls for a tablespoon of liquid Stevia.

Stevia works well when sugar isn’t needed as a thickening agent, like in my fruit cup recipes.

How to Make Canned Peach Sauce

First pit the peaches into halves or quarters.

Prepare your steam canner or water bath canner. If you haven’t heard of steam canners, they are amazing and I explain more about them here but they are ready in 5 minutes, while a traditional water bath canner is ready in 25. They are what I use almost exclusively and what I’d recommend to any canner.

You’ll combine the peaches, lemon juice, water, in a blender. Blend smooth.

Add peach puree and stevia in the preserving pan and bring to a simmer.

Whisk in the liquid stevia (2 packets, which come in 1 box).

Ladle into jars. Add new lids and rings, and place on canner (steps for specific canner below).

Process for 15 minutes at sea level.

Want to know more about these steam canners? You can download the free Steam Canner Fact Sheet here!

You Will Need

8 cups halved or quartered peaches

1 cup water

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon liquid stevia if desired

2 packets of liquid pectin

Canned Peach Sauce Recipe

Pit peaches and halve or quarter and add to a blender. I love this one.

Add the 1 cup water, the 1/2 cup lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Puree very smooth.

Prepare your water bath or steam canner pot. You’ll need about 8 half pint jars for this recipe.

A. For the traditional water bath method, fill the pot with hot water, filling the jars so they don’t float, and bring to a boil.

B. For the recommended steam canner method, fill the steam canner to the mark (just over the handles, using 2.5 quarts) with water, set the jars on the rack, and turn to low.

NOTE: for both methods, you don’t need to simmer your lids nor sterilize your jars. Both steps are not required by the USDA. Read more about simmering lids here and about sterilizing jars here. Both steps waste time and you won’t find any time wasting steps on my blog 🙂

Combine the peaches, lemon juice, water, in a blender. Blend smooth.

Add peach puree and stevia in the preserving pan and bring to a simmer.

Whisk in the liquid stevia (2 packets, which come in 1 box).

Ladle into jars with 1/2 inch headspace (the space between the food and the top edge of the jar).

Add new lids and rings, and place on steam canner rack OR submerge carefully into boiling water bath.

A. For traditional water bath, make sure the jars are covered by at least 1 inch of boiling water. Then start the processing time of 15 minutes. When the time is up, remove the jars onto a towel covered countertop.

B. For the steam canner method, place the lid on the steam canner pot. Turn the heat to medium high and the dial will climb to the green zone of your elevation. Then, adjust the heat of the stove to be such that it is just high enough that the dial remains in the green zone. There is no advantage to it boiling rapidly inside. This means you may turn it to medium, or simply keep it at medium high, depending on your stove. Then start the processing time of 15 minutes. When the time is up, turn the stove off. You can leave the lid on indefinitely, OR remove the jars to a towel covered countertop while still hot. Use caution when lifting the lid.

Label jars and store.

You Will Also Love

Maple Whiskey Peaches

Applesauce Canning Recipe

Canning Jump Start Guide