Freezing, dehydrating, fermenting, and canning sound like four different hobbies. Really, they're four ways of doing the same thing: keeping good food around a little longer.
Food preservation can look intimidating. There are bubbling crocks, enormous steaming canning pots, vacuum sealers, dehydrators that take up too much counter, mysterious jars on shelves reminiscent of an old time apothecary, and people who seem to instinctively know exactly how many pounds of tomatoes become seven quarts of sauce.
But that's not where you begin. That takes a while to grow into (pun intended), but we all started with the same first steps.
Start with one thing you already eat. Preserve a little of it. Learn what happens.
It will quickly become your favorite science experiment.
Why preserve food at home?
For most of our history, preserving food wasn't a hobby. It was simply part of keeping a household fed. In today's world, it is a lost art, but something we should be investing our time in. With uncertainty in pricing, availability, and mass recalls, food insecurity is becoming more common.
Preserving lets you buy produce when it's abundant, keep a garden harvest from going to waste, take advantage of bulk prices, prepare ingredients ahead of time, and slowly build a pantry and freezer full of food you'll actually use.
And there is something deeply satisfying about opening the freezer in February and finding peppers you put away in August. 🌶️
When getting started, there are four methods you should have a basic understanding of.
1. Freezing: ← Start Here
If you've never preserved food before, freezing is the easiest place to begin.
You already own most of the equipment.
Freezing works particularly well for:
-
Berries and fruit
-
Chopped onions and peppers
-
Corn and peas
-
Soups, stocks, and sauces
-
Cooked beans and grains
-
Bread and baked goods
-
Prepared meals
-
Herbs in oil or water
-
Meat and poultry
Some vegetables benefit from blanching before freezing. That means briefly boiling or steaming them and then cooling them quickly in ice water. Blanching slows the enzymes that can affect flavor, color, and texture during storage.
Beware: the biggest enemy in your freezer is air.
Use freezer-safe containers or bags, remove as much air as possible (vacuum sealing is best), label everything with the contents and date, and - I cannot stress this part enough - freeze foods in portions you'll actually use.
You don't want to spend an hour chipping away at a giant frozen brick of soup when you only want one bowl.
A good first project
Buy an extra pound or two of bell peppers or onions.
Wash them, dice them to your desired size, spread them on a sheet pan in a single layer, and freeze until firm. Freezing them individually allows you to grab only what you need later. Once their firm, toss them in a ziploc.
Now you have peppers or onions ready to toss into eggs, soups, fajitas, pasta, or stir-fries.
Now you've preserved food.
That's it. You've started.
2. Dehydrating: Remove the Water
Dehydrating preserves food by removing the moisture microorganisms need to grow.
A dedicated dehydrator makes the process easier and more consistent, but you don't need one to get started. Some foods can also be dried in an oven capable of maintaining sufficiently low temperatures, or even outdoors if your climate is dry and warm (I live in Arizona).
Good beginner foods include:
-
Apple slices
-
Citrus
-
Herbs
-
Peppers
-
Tomatoes
-
Mushrooms
-
Onions
-
Garlic
-
Fruit leather
Most food dehydrates well at 160 degrees for 4-8 hours. Your time and temp will vary depending on the original moisture content of the food you are drying.
After drying, allow foods to cool completely before packing them into airtight containers. Fruit is often conditioned after drying by loosely packing it into containers for several days and checking for condensation, which can reveal uneven remaining moisture. If your fruit is producing condensation, toss it back in the oven for an additional 2 hours.
A good first project
Slice a few apples evenly, treat them according to a tested dehydrating method if desired to limit browning, and dry them until they reach the recommended texture for storage.
A handful of apples suddenly becomes a jar of snacks that can sit on the pantry shelf instead of slowly becoming squishy compost in the fruit bowl on your counter.
I would start with a fruit you like, apples, strawberries, bananas (banana chips are quite delicious).
3. Fermenting: Let Microbes Work for You
Fermentation feels like kitchen alchemy every time you do it.
Instead of eliminating microorganisms entirely, fermentation creates conditions that favor the microorganisms we desire.
There are four components used regularly in fermenting: salt, temperature, acidity, and time.
Fermentation gives us foods like:
-
Sauerkraut (cabbage)
-
Kimchi (also cabbage)
-
Fermented pickles (cucumbers, or anything you want pickled)
-
Hot sauce (peppers)
-
Yogurt (dairy)
-
Sourdough (flour)
Vegetable fermentation is a particularly accessible place to start.
The basic idea is simple: vegetables are kept in an appropriately salty environment, usually submerged beneath brine, where lactic-acid bacteria convert sugars into acids.
Those acids create the tangy flavor we associate with fermented foods while making the environment increasingly hostile to many unwanted organisms.
A good first project
Sauerkraut.
It requires essentially two ingredients: cabbage and salt.
But fermentation isn't a place to improvise wildly when you're beginning. Use a reliable, tested recipe with specified salt ratios, keep vegetables submerged as directed, and learn what a healthy ferment should look and smell like.
Once you understand the process, a whole world of bubbling jars opens up (and don't forget to burp your jars).
4. Canning: Learn the Rules First
Unlike freezing, canning creates food intended to remain shelf-stable at room temperature. That means food safety matters enormously, and the rules are NOT suggestions. This can discourage some from attempting canning, but once you understand the rules, you can use canning for just about any food out there that you wish to have in your pantry long term.
There are two major forms of home canning; Water-bath canning and Pressure canning.
Water-bath canning
Used for sufficiently acidic foods such as:
-
Jams
-
Jellies
-
Fruit preserves
-
Pickles
-
Relishes
-
Acidified tomato products
Jars are processed in boiling water for a specified amount of time depending on the recipe.
Pressure canning
Used for low-acid foods such as:
-
Vegetables
-
Meat
-
Poultry
-
Seafood
-
Soups and stocks
These foods require temperatures higher than boiling water can achieve. A pressure canner allows the contents to reach the temperatures necessary for safe processing, and ensures your food is shelf stable.
A pressure cooker and a pressure canner are not the same thing.
For canning, recipes should come from trusted sources publishing scientifically tested processes. As you get more familiar with canning you can begin tweaking recipes, but the rules remain the same.
When learning, follow the recipe and do not casually change jar sizes, processing times, ingredient proportions, acidity, or processing methods.
Your great-aunt may have canned green beans in a boiling-water bath for 40 years without trouble.
We are still using the pressure canner.
Great-aunt gets to keep her stories. Science gets jurisdiction over botulism.
What Equipment Do You Actually Need?
You don't need to build a miniature homestead supply warehouse before preserving your first strawberry.
Start according to the method you're trying, and pick ONE to start with.
For freezing: freezer-safe containers or bags, labels, and perhaps a sheet pan for individually freezing ingredients. This can be a cookie sheet and a zip lock bag to start with.
For dehydrating: a dehydrator or suitable oven, airtight storage containers, and a good knife or mandoline for even slices.
For fermenting: glass jars or a fermentation crock, appropriate lids, weights to keep vegetables submerged, salt, and a reliable recipe.
For water-bath canning: proper canning jars and new lids, jar lifter, funnel, rack, and a pot deep enough for the required water coverage.
For pressure canning: a pressure canner designed for home canning plus the standard jar-handling equipment. (This is the last one I would grow into, as it costs more to get started, so buy your equipment as your skills grow.)
A capable home kitchen is built by your use and growth of experience, not by accumulating fancy gadgets and gear.
Pick One Thing
This is the part that matters.
Don't decide you're going to "start preserving", just decide you're going to freeze this week's extra peppers.
Or dry six apples.
Or make one jar of sauerkraut.
Or water-bath can a tested batch of strawberry jam.
One ingredient. One method. One afternoon.
Then do it again.
Then the fun begins. You'll stop looking at that container of tomatoes in your fridge thinking "We need to eat these before they go bad." Instead, you start seeing pasta sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, salsa frozen tomato puree to use in winter soup.
And that's just the beginning.
Start small. Keep what you can. Learn from every batch.
0 comments