Winter Citrus Canning Recipes

Stock the Pantry with Sunshine

Feb 07, 2026

Winter is citrus season, and it’s the bright spot I look forward to every single year. When everything outside is gray and frozen, citrus feels like sunshine in a crate. It’s also the perfect time to stock the pantry with flavors that taste like summer, even when the snow is still piled up at the end of the driveway.

Every year we have a mid-winter citrus festival here, and we put up citrus in just about every way possible. I wrote about our tradition on my other newsletter, and that’s where you can find all the non canning recipes for preserving citrus.

Marmalade is always on the list, of course, but we also do dehydrated slices for drinks and simmer pots, freeze-dried zest for quick baking and seasoning, and even lacto-fermented salt-cured lemons for cooking all year long.

This year, a couple of new tools genuinely leveled up my citrus canning game, and we managed to preserve more citrus than we ever have before.

First, I found a cast iron and stainless steel citrus juicer that pulls an unbelievable amount of juice from the fruit. When a recipe says you’ll need 15 to 20 lemons to get 2 cups of juice, I’m getting that from 7 to 10 lemons instead. I’m averaging almost a cup of juice per pound of citrus, which is wild, and it makes the whole process feel a lot more doable (especially when you’re staring down a mountain of fruit on the counter).

With those yields, I decided it was finally time to can more straight citrus juice, not just marmalades and syrups. This year we put up grapefruit, orange, lemon, and lime juice. Every batch came out beautifully, and I’m genuinely thrilled with the quality.

It’s one of those pantry staples that feels a little luxurious, and it’s so handy for everything from quick drinks to recipes that need a reliable hit of citrus without running to the store.

The other big reason we got so much done quickly is that I just added a steam canner to my setup. It’s noticeably cleaner and easier than traditional water bath canning, and I don’t have to throw out my back hauling a huge pot of water from the sink to the stove. It’s still a boiling-water method and uses the same tested processing times as a water bath canner, just with less water and less fuss, which makes a difference when you’re canning multiple batches back to back.

I reached out to the company, and they offered Creative Canning readers a 10% discount on the Concord stainless steel steam canner through my link. It’s an affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission if you choose to purchase through it, at no extra cost to you.

And since I was already in full citrus mode, I also put together recipe lists for just about every type of citrus we preserve. If you’re putting up citrus this winter, I hope these give you a little inspiration, whether you’re working through a single bag of lemons or planning your own full-on citrus extravaganza.

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