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Happy Fall Everyone!
There is nothing quite like a hot bowl of homemade soup on a cold and windy day. But if you are like me, sometimes you want the food but maybe not all the mess, or you don’t have the time at that moment. If you learn to can your soup, you only have the mess once, but can enjoy the soup over and over again!
Home Canned Vegetable Beef soup is one of my favorites! It also a perfect soup to make at the end of the season when the last of the vegetables are finishing. This post isn’t a typical recipe. It’s more of a guideline to allow you to use your personal recipe.
Even though this soup has to be pressure canned, it is still relatively easy to make and can. For using your specific pressure canner, read your instructions that came with it. It will require you to put a few quarts in your canner to start, add your jars with lids, properly attach the cover, let the steam release, let the pressure build, cook for the allotted time and then cool down. If you don’t have a pressure canner yet, I highly recommend the All American Pressure Canner. Another good, but less expensive option is the Presto Pressure Canner.
Step One: Gather and Prep your ingredients
This is the fun part in my opinion. I love looking for and buying fresh produce or picking it from the garden. There is just something rewarding about having a counter full of fresh ingredients instead of all the processed store boxes and cans. For this soup, I use carrots, potatoes, corn, green beans, peas, onions, celery, bell peppers, and beef (whatever is cheapest). Don’t worry, even the toughest harshest cuts of meat will turn out tender once the canning process is complete.
You will want to wash all your vegetables and cut them into the size you prefer for your soup. I like everything cut into 1/4″-1/2″ cubes/dices. I also leave the skin on the potatoes when I use baby reds.
If you don’t want all the trouble of washing/peeling/ chopping fresh veggies, you can always use freeze dried veggies. They have all the same nutrients as fresh garden produce, but don’t require any prep time and work well in canning!
Fresh cut vegetables
Freeze Dried Vegetables
Step Two: Cook your soup
In a large stockpot or pressure cooker, add a little oil and your meat. I used beef stew meat for this soup. Brown your meat and add the seasonings that you like. I use pepper, garlic and onion powder and a little salt.
Once the beef has been browned, you can then add your stock/broth and your vegetables. I used to use V8 juice along with some beef broth. But since I found out about tomato powder, I’ve switched. I now use boiling water, tomato powder, and beef bouillon. It works well to give a nice deep flavor. Once everything is added, and you have seasoned to your taste with salt and pepper, let it simmer until the vegetables start to get tender. You don’t want to cook it too long in the pot because it will all cook more during the canning process and you don’t want everything to become mush. Then let it simmer, and in about 20-30 minutes, you’ve got homemade vegetable soup!
Step Three: Fill Jars and Pressure Cook
Now you are ready to fill your hot, prepared jars. I like to put my soup in wide mouth pint jars so that they are single serving size. Fill your jars making sure to keep 1″ of headspace. Make sure you remove any air bubbles.
Next, make sure you are giving your jars a water bath. Water-bath canning is very important because it ensures safe storage at room temperature for up to a year. Canned foods that are stored in a freezer typically last for 3 to 5 years.
For an easy guide to water-bath canning, click here.
Now you are ready for the pressure canning. Place your jars into your canner, following your canner’s instructions. In my large canner, I can fit 16 pints (8 per layer) with a separator between layers.
Adjust your canner lid, bring up to pressure and process pints for 1 hour and 15 minutes for pints at 10 pounds of pressure (1 hour and 30 minutes for quarts). Let cool before removing jars.
Enjoy your home canned vegetable beef soup!
Canning vegetable beef soup is easy using the pressure canning method!
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If you want to learn more about canning, this free webinar is a great resource! Just click HERE, then press play to watch the free one hour webinar. Then, you can click on any of the links on that are on that page if you are interested in taking a full eCourse.
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Can you use frozen vegetables?
I don’t have a pressure canner. Can I can using my large pot of boiling water? Same as I do for vegetables?
No. It is not safe. Only things that can be canned without pressure are things that have vinegar in them, have added sugar (a lot) or tomato based foods (that are primarily tomatoes) due ti acid in tomatoes.
Can you can soup with soy based meat products
Why is both water bath and pressure canning required? I feel like the veggies would get super mushy
I think she was reffering the waterbath to clean/sterilize jars before filling. It’s a step I don’t do but jars do need to be hot so the hot soup doesn’t crack the jar.
Water bath is not the safe method to can Meats and non acidic vegetables. These items must be pressured can to produce a shelf stable product. Please follow a safe tested recipe from a source like National Center for Home Food a preservation .
Could you cook meet them raw pack the rest of ingredients? When I precooked the soup last year all veggies were way to soft.
Could u just cook the soup for an hour and a half then put in jars without using the canner
Absolutely not. The pressure canning is what prevents botulism from forming in the food. Water bath, nor cooking, can reach high enough temp to prevent botulism. The only water bath canning you can do is high acidic foods such as fruit or tomatoes. Please practice all safety precautions to prevent illness or death of yourself and family.
Hi, Donna. You could do that but you should eat the soup right away, say that night or in the next couple of days. If you want to can it, you need to process it per the directions for your altitude, etc. in order for it to be safe.
Can you use the old woodpecker method?if so how long should I cook the jars
OK, Patti. I’m 72 and was raised in the “old” canning methods. Never heard of the woodpecker. We used to tap the lids to see if they rang clear or thudded to tell if they had sealed. Enlighten me. Thanks.
I didn’t think vegetable soup once completely cooked would still require over an hour of pressure canning. I made 10 quarts and lost them! They all sealed then after a couple of days they started to ping open! Heartbreaking! Help
Times for pressure canning are to kill the microorganisms that cause botulism, not times for cooking the food. You have!!!!! to follow the correct guidelines. If you do not have one, I suggest you get a Ball BlueBook canning book.
The meat needs to cook for 1 hour 30 minutes. You cook it for the ingredient that requires the longest time. Without the meat, it would take less time and that would depend in what vegetables that you use.
Maybe you didn’t leave enough head space–space for your soup to expand during processing. I heartily agree with (Patricia G Lemon) getting the Ball Blue Book. There’s a chart that tells you how to adjust your processing time and pressure for your altitude. Most canning recipes are written for 1,000 ft. above sea level. Not workable for MT. I have to process at 15 psi (weighted gauge) for 10 more minutes than the recipe says. I’m at 5,000 ft. above sea level.
Diane, as a post script to my other comment, don’t despair! Keep on. I was raised water bathing, canning, jellying, jamming, pickling, freezing. You can do this and you, and everyone you share with, will be grateful and you, will feel productive and fulfilled!
Why is pressure canning necessary? My mom used water bath canning for vegetables like three hours of boiling. None of us got sick