Creative Canning | December 2024
Early Winter Canning Recipes
December means cold weather, regular snowfall and almost nothing coming inform the garden…but there are still plenty of early winter canning recipes you can make to preserve what you do have.
Some things, like dry beans, can be canned any time of year so that they’re cooked and ready to eat at a moment’s notice. The same goes for meat canning recipes, soups, stews and meal-in-a-jar recipes.
Beyond that, there are a few things that are harvested or fresh in December, namely pomegranates, persimmons, quince, medlar, late-season apples, root crops, and winter squash.
And, of course, who could forget cranberries!
December Canning Recipe Lists
These recipe lists will keep you busy canning what’s in season in December!
December Meal in a Jar & Soup Recipes
Most of my favorite canning recipes are those that take work out of busy weeknights, and what I put up now will feed us year-round.
Canning Beef Burgundy (Julia Child’s Recipe)
December Fruit Canning Recipes
Late in the season, you’ll still have apples and pears from the autumn, plus a few new late-season fruits like cranberries, persimmons, quince and more!
December Jam and Jelly Recipes
Though the fresh berries of summer are gone, there’s still plenty of ways to make Jams, Jellies, and fruit butters with late-season fruit!
December Juice Canning Recipes
Most of the juice canning recipes end with summer, but there are a few that linger into December.
December Pie Filling Canning Recipes
There are more than 20 pie-filling recipes you can make at home for canning, but most are out of season by December. There are still a few left, though!
December Vegetable Canning Recipes
Putting up plain veggies means quick, versatile meals later on, and while pickings are slim in December, you can still put up root crops and spuds that just won’t store all winter without a root cellar.
December Pickling Recipes
You can pickle almost anything, and that includes late-season December produce!
Pickled Onions (3 ways)
If there’s a canning or preserving recipe that you’d like to find, please do let me know in the comments, and I’ll see what I can do to track it down for you.
Happy Canning!
-Ashley at Creative Canning
(Ps. I also run the blog Practical Self Reliance, which has information on all manner of food preservation techniques (cheesemaking, salt curing, fermenting) as well as just about everything else you’d need to learn to be self-reliant in this modern world. It has its own substack as well, and you can subscribe to practical self-reliance separately as well. That newsletter comes out weekly and covers canning, as well as everything else.)
I just made your French onion soup. It was amazing! It's one of my favorite soups. There are many new things on your list I can't wait to try. Also, I just wanted to say we had the same label maker as you used for your apple butter! I remember my parents having one when I was a kid. An oldie but a goodie!
Everything looks delicious!
I'm looking for a decent orange sauce recipe that I can can, but they all call for corn starch. If I replace the corn starch with clear jel (cook type) would it be safe for canning and can I water bath can it?