How to Create Your Own Soup Canning Recipe

Canning soup at home allows you to create healthy meals for your family right on your pantry shelf. Since you’re selecting the ingredients, you control the quality of the finished product, and now there is specific guidance for safely canning your own soup recipes.

Making your own canned soup is not only a great way to preserve seasonal ingredients, but it also provides quick and delicious meals ready to enjoy any day of the week. While, in general, it’s best to follow safe, tested canning recipes, a few agencies have recently released guidance that allows you to safely create your own pressure canned soup recipe at home.

The National Center for Food Preservation and the University of Alaska Extension each have guidelines for creating your own soup canning recipe at home. These are pressure canning recipes, and they allow you to create your own shelf-stable soups, provided you follow a few important guidelines.

They break the guidelines up into two categories, for either brothy soups or hearty soups.

Brothy soups are soups like chicken soup where the jars are only half filled with solids, and the rest is liquid. These types of soups have shorter processing times, and you’re allowed to include a larger variety of ingredients since they’re not particularly thick and heat can easily penetrate the center of the jar during canning.

Hearty soups are soups where the whole jar is full of ingredients, and there’s minimal broth. A good example would be a hearty beef stew or a fish chowder base, where the jar is filled to the top with solids, and then boiling broth is poured over at the end before canning.

These guidelines can also be used to can things that aren’t quite soups in how they’re served, but have similar ingredients. Things like pot roast in a jar, beef stroganoff, sloppy joe filling, or beef chuck chili.

Since these recipes are very flexible, they’ll also help you change other canning recipes. If you find a pressure canning recipe that you’d like to change, there’s a good chance you can adjust it to follow hearty soup canning guidelines.

The canning times here are a bit longer than many individually tested canning recipes, and that’s because they’re trying to ensure safety with a variety of ingredients.

If you do alter an otherwise tested recipe to use these guidelines, be sure you’ve followed the instructions about what can and cannot be included, and increased the canning time to be consistent with either the brothy soup or hearty soup canning instructions given below.

Understanding Soup Canning Basics

When it comes to canning soups that contain low-acid ingredients like vegetables and meats, pressure canning is essential. This method ensures that harmful bacteria are effectively eliminated, allowing for safe storage.

If you’re not familiar with pressure canning, I’d strongly suggest reading my beginner’s guide to pressure canning to understand the basics.

There are no safe methods for water bath canning soups.

Important Safety Considerations

Certain ingredients should never be included in canned soups, as they can interfere with the canning process or create unsafe conditions. Avoid adding:

Thickening agents (like flour or cornstarch) that can prevent heat from reaching the center of the jar. This also includes bread products like breadcrumbs or dumplings.
Dairy products (such as milk or cheese) that can react with bacteria, making them harder to kill.
Pasta or grains that can expand and become too dense for safe processing.

Guidelines for Brothy Soups

When canning brothy soups, it’s essential to follow these detailed steps to ensure safety and quality.

When making a brothy soup recipe, you can Include:

Fresh vegetables (like carrots, celery, and bell peppers)
Meat or poultry (cut into pieces)
Fish (in small pieces)
Pre-soaked and rehydrated beans
Water, Broth, Stock, Wine or Juice
Fresh or dried herbs and spices (to taste)

However, you cannot include:

Thickening agents (flour, cornstarch)
Dairy products (milk, cream, cheese)
Noodles, pasta, rice, grains
Pureed vegetables
Ham, bacon or cured meats
Any ingredients that lack specific canning guidelines

That last bullet point is important! Any vegetable or ingredient that doesn’t have its own specific canning instruction is not allowed in these “choose your own adventure” type soup recipes. For example, onions, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and many other vegetables have their own canning recipe, and they can be included.

Other vegetables, like cabbage, do not, and you cannot add those. It’s true that cabbage is included in some canning recipes, but all of those are water bath and pickling canning recipes. There’s a reason cabbage doesn’t do well in pressure canning, it tastes horrible when subjected to pressure canning temperatures, and as a result, they’ve never really gone through the effort to test it for pressure canning.

Other leafy greens like spinach and kale do have canning specific canning recipes, so they’re fine in brothy soups.

The only exceptions here that I know of are celery and leeks, which may be added to home canned soups based on advice from University Extension Offices.

Preparing Brothy Soups

Choose Your Ingredients: Select a soup recipe that includes vegetables, meat, or seafood. Ensure that each ingredient has its own canning recommendations from a reliable source. In general, a hot pack is recommended for better quality all meats and vegetables.
Prepare Your Ingredients:
- Vegetables: Wash, peel, and chop according to their specific canning guidelines. Cook vegetables as required for a hot pack before adding to your soup.
- Meat or Poultry: Cook until tender, cool, and remove any bones and excess fat. Cut into bite-sized pieces. Ground meat must be browned before including in the recipe.
- Seafood: Cut into bite-sized pieces, bones may remain as they will soften during processing.
- Dried Beans or Peas: Fully rehydrate them first by soaking in water, boiling for 2 minutes, and letting them sit for an hour before draining and cooking until tender. Unlike bean canning recipes, beans in brothy soups do not need to be pre-cooked before canning, only pre-soaked and rehydrated.
Combining Ingredients: Combine solid ingredients (vegetables, meat) in a large pot. Add enough broth or water to cover them, plus an additional 2-3 inches. Bring this mixture to a boil and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste with herbs and spices, but remember not to fully cook the soup since it will continue to cook in the jars. Do not thicken the soup, as this can affect the canning process.
Filling Jars: Use a slotted spoon to fill jars halfway with the solid mixture, then top off with the remaining liquid, leaving a 1-inch headspace (3 cm). This “half and half” rule (equal parts solids and liquid) ensures proper heat circulation during processing.
Seal and Process: Stir gently to remove air bubbles, wipe the jar rims, and apply the lids. Process the jars in a pressure canner according to the guidelines below.

Be aware that although the jars may only be filled halfway when they go into the canner, many of these ingredients will expand during the canning process. Beans and corn, for example, expand considerably when canned, so your jars will end up more than halfway full in the end. The taco soup in the picture below is a good example, and the jars finish nearly full of solids.

Taco soup

Processing Times for Brothy Soups

The processing times for canning brothy soups are 60 minutes for pints and 75 minutes for quarts. This is true at all elevations, and the pressure changes rather than the canning time.

The only exception is when soups contain seafood, and in that case, both pints and quarts are processed for 100 minutes (one hour and fourty minutes).

Altitude adjustments for pressure-canning brothy soups are as follows:

For dial gauge pressure canners:

0 to 2,000 feet in elevation – 11 lbs pressure
2,001 to 4,000 feet in elevation – 12 lbs pressure
4,001 to 6,000 feet in elevation – 13 lbs pressure
6,001 to 8,000 feet in elevation – 14 lbs pressure

For weighted gauge pressure canners:

0 to 1,000 feet in elevation – 10 lbs pressure
Above 1,000 feet – 15 lbs pressure

Guidelines for Hearty Soups

Hearty soups typically contain more solid ingredients compared to brothy soups, which can make them a bit denser. Up until recently, there were no generic instructions for canning hearty soups, but the University of Alaska Extension released a publication (FNH-00065) which now provides specific instructions for canning soups without a lot of broth.

Here’s how to can them safely:

Select Your Ingredients: Similar to brothy soups, choose a recipe with vegetables and meat, and only use ingredients that have a specific canning recipe for canning the item individually. Unlike brothy soups, you cannot include the following ingredients in hearty soups:
- Dry Beans or Legumes of any kind
- Greens such as Kale, Spinach, etc.
- Cream Style Corn (but regular corn is fine)
- Winter Squash (but summer squash is fine)
- Sweet Potatoes
Combine and Boil: Add all solid ingredients to a pot and cover with hot water or broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes to preheat the ingredients for hot pack. Hot pack is for quality, not safety, and Ball Canning’s uses raw pack in their recipes.
Jar Filling: Fill jars to about 1 inch from the top with solid ingredients. Pour in the hot broth until you reach the 1-inch headspace.
Final Steps: Stir to remove air bubbles and wipe the jar rims. Seal and process in a pressure canner, following the specific time requirements for hearty soups.

Canning Beef Pot Pie Filling. This can be served as is as a hearty soup or thickened and baked into a pot pie.

Processing Times for Hearty Soups

The processing times for canning hearty soups are 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts. This is true at all elevations, and the pressure changes rather than the canning time.

If the soup contains seafood, then it can only be canned in pints and the processing time is increased to 100 minutes (one hour and fourty minutes). Do not can hearty soups containing seafood in quart jars. (However, brothy soups containing seafood may be canned in quarts.)

Altitude adjustments for canning hearty soups are the same as for any pressure canning recipe, and they only change the pressure, not the canning time.

For dial gauge pressure canners:

0 to 2,000 feet in elevation – 11 lbs pressure
2,001 to 4,000 feet in elevation – 12 lbs pressure
4,001 to 6,000 feet in elevation – 13 lbs pressure
6,001 to 8,000 feet in elevation – 14 lbs pressure

For weighted gauge pressure canners:

0 to 1,000 feet in elevation – 10 lbs pressure
Above 1,000 feet – 15 lbs pressure

Shelf Life of Home Canned Soups

Whether brothy or hearty, properly pressure canned soups in sealed jars may be stored on the pantry shelf indefinitely. They don’t spoil so long as the jars are sealed.

However, after 12 to 18 months, quality will begin to decline. They’re still safe to eat so long as they’re sealed, but they may not be the tastiest if you store them more than a year or two.

Of course, remember to refrigerate after opening.

Reheating Your Canned Soups

Home-canned soups can be eaten right out of the jar, but obviously, they’re best reheated. For most soups, pouring them into a saucepan and bringing them to a simmer for about 10 minutes is sufficient.

You can also remove the metal parts (lid and ring) and microwave the soup right in the jar.

Some soups are canned as soup bases, and you add additional ingredients at serving. Things like cream of mushroom soup base or clam chowder base are thickened with cream, and other soups are pureed at serving, like asparagus soup base or potato leek soup base.

Of course, that’s optional, and you don’t have to thicken or puree the soup, you can serve them as is. It’s a matter of personal preference.

You can also add ingredients that are not safe for canning at serving, such as rice, pasta, dumplings or coconut milk.

When it comes to serving, it’s totally up to you.

Soup Canning Recipes

I have an entire article covering more than 50 different soup canning recipes, but here are a few to get you started. These are for inspiration, and with the guidance above, you can alter them to suit your families taste, or come up with your own recipes all on your own.

Brothy Soup Canning Recipes

Hearty Soup Canning Recipes

Meal in a Jar Recipes Using Hearty Soup Process

As I mentioned, these canning processes for hearty soups can be used for canning other meal-in-a-jar recipes. These recipes all use hearty soup canning guidance:

Main navigation