Learn how to pressure can simple carrots to have available in your pantry. This recipe is adjustable to the quantity of carrots that you have.
Canned Carrots are a great shortcut for serving with meals.
They can be quickly added to a soup or stew or heat them in a sauce pan with a little butter and a pinch of salt for a simple side dish.
To Pressure Can Carrots You Will Need:
- carrots
- vegetable peeler
- knife
- canning tools (jar lifter, bubble wand, etc.)
- large pot
- boiling water
- salt
- ladle
- white vinegar
- small dish
- damp cloth
- pint or quart mason jars with lids
Pressure canning carrots is a very simple process and a great introductory recipe for new canners.
Watch me pressure can carrots in the video below:
Carrots are washed, then you cut off the ends and peel them.
Dice the carrots or cut them to lengths that can fit into the jars. See my Brown Sugar Glazed Carrots post for reference on that.
Pack the jars with carrots as tightly as you can get them in there.
Add a little salt to each jar and fill them with boiling water to an inch of headspace.
Use a bubble wand to get the air bubbles out and add additional water if needed to return the headspace to one inch.
Wipe the rims of the jars with a damp cloth that is dipped in white vinegar.
Close the jars with a lid and ring and place them in the pressure canner.
The processing time for carrots is 25 minutes for pints and 30 minutes for quarts at 10 pounds pressure.
Always adjust the recipe for your elevation. Learn how to do that here: How to Adjust Canning Recipes for Altitude
Can I Hot Water Bath Can Carrots?
No. Carrots are a low acid food and must be pressure canned. Hot water bath canning carrots would be unsafe.
There are pickled carrot recipes out there that are hot water bath canned, but they are pickled in a brine and that brine makes them a high acid food. Only those types of carrots can be canned in that way.
Did you Make this Recipe? I’d love for you to give me a 5 star rating in the recipe card below. If you share it on Instagram, please tag me!
How to Can Carrots
Ingredients
- 10 lb carrots
- 2 Tb salt, approximately
- boiling water
Instructions
- To begin, wash the carrots.
- Peel the carrots and cut off the ends, then wash the carrots again.
- Dice the carrots or cut them into lengths to fit into the jars. (See my Brown Sugar Glazed Carrots post for reference.)
- Pack the carrots into the jars as tightly as you can leaving 1 inch of headspace.
- Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each pint, or 1 teaspoon to each quart jar depending upon which size jar you wish to can in.
- Ladle boiling water into each jar. Using a bubble wand to remove bubbles and then add additional water if needed to maintain the 1 inch headspace.
- Wipe the jar rims with a damp cloth that is dipped in white vinegar.
- Place a lid and ring on the jar and place the jar in the pressure canner. Do this with all of the jars.
- Seal your pressure canner and begin heating it up. When you have a steady stream of steam coming from the vent, set your timer for 10 minutes.
- Place your weight on the vent and bring your canner up to the correct pressure (10 lb for weighted, 11 lb for gauge canners.)
- Process pint jars for 25 minutes or quart jars for 30 minutes. See the article linked in the post in regards to adjusting for your elevation.
- When the processing time has completed, turn off the heat and allow the canner pressure to come down on its own.
- When the pressure has returned to 0, remove the weight and wait a minute.
- Open you canner and let the jars rest for a few minutes.
- Transfer the jars to a lined surface that is in a draft-free location.
- Let the jars rest 12-24 hours.
- Remove the rings and test the seals to make sure all of your jars are sealed.
- Label your jars and set them in your pantry.
- If any jars did not seal, set them in your refrigerator and use them right away.
Equipment Used
Nutrition
If nutritional values are provided for this recipe, they are an estimate and will vary depending on the brands of ingredients you use. The values do not include optional ingredients or when ingredients are added to taste or for serving. If nutritional values are very important to you, I suggest using your favorite nutritional calculating tool with the brands you use.
Can I do this with a water bath instead of a pressure cooker?
No, carrots must be pressure canned as they are a low acid food and can harbor bacteria that can not be killed with a hot water bath canner.