Timely Tips for Preserving Food at Home

Preserving food at home has long been a New Hampshire tradition. Growing and preserving your own food lets you enjoy delicious, locally grown fruits and vegetables throughout the year.

Even if you don’t have time or land to grow your own food, New Hampshire’s 300 fruit and vegetable growers offer a wide variety of high quality produce at roadside stands, farmers’ markets, and pick-your-own operations.

The advantages of preserving food at home include supporting local agriculture, taking advantage of the abundance of high quality produce, preserving food within hours of picking, and having control over the ingredients. The tradeoff for these advantages is the time and effort to preserve food at home and the cost of equipment.

Main food preservation methods

There are three main methods of preserving food: canning (which includes pickling), freezing, and drying. Which method you choose will depend on the characteristics of the food you want to preserve and whether there is a tested and safe method of preserving it.

For example, you might have a bumper crop of basil this year and want to make and can small jars of pesto as gifts for your family. Even though canned pesto is available commercially, there is no recommended method for canning it at home. Alternatively, you can safely freeze pesto for long term storage.

Even though summer months are usually busy ones and your time may be limited, you can still preserve food at home. Freezing, for example, takes little time and doesn’t require any special processing equipment.

Comparing canning, freezing and drying

Let’s compare the amount of time and equipment needed for each of the three methods of preserving food:

• Canning (includes fruits, vegetables, jellied products, pickled products)
• Equipment needed: water bath or pressure canner, jars and lids
• Preparation time: long
• Processing time: medium
• Freezing
• Equipment needed: freezer and packaging materials
• Preparation time: short to medium
• Processing time: short
• Drying
• Equipment needed: dehydrator
• Preparation time: short to medium
• Processing time: long

Select the method that best fits your schedule and how you’ll use the food. Be flexible. You may start the summer growing season thinking this will be the year you make strawberry jam, but your work schedule turns crazy just when the local berries are ripe. But if you don’t have time to make jam, you can freeze your strawberries, which takes much less time. You may even enjoy berries more than jam (you’ll also find the berries more versatile for meal-planning) next February when it seems as though winter will last forever.

Four steps to success

Whether you consider yourself an expert or novice food preserver, you can save time, effort, and money by following these four important steps as you plan ahead this summer.

1. Plan carefully before you begin to preserve food at home. Time invested before you begin your project will save you time later.
   
2. Use only up-to-date tested recipes and methods (see resources below). This is an important step. Preserving food safely at home is an evolving science. Recipes and methods are constantly updated based on current research.
   
3. Gather all your ingredients and equipment. Make sure you have everything you need on hand so you can work quickly and efficiently. Inspect equipment and replace as needed.
   
4. Follow recipes and directions precisely. Tested recipes are based on precise amounts of ingredients and procedures. For some preservation methods, altering either can affect the quality and safety of the final product.

Resources for tested recipes and methods

• UNH Cooperative Extension Family, Home, and Garden Info Line – 1-877-398-4769, Monday through Friday, 9 am to 2 pm.
  
  Trained volunteers provide resources, fact sheets and answer your food preservation questions.
  
  
• National Center for Home Food Preservation
  This is a comprehensive website featuring research-based information, publications, recipes, methods, and links for most food preservation methods.
  
• Pennsylvania State University – Let’s Preserve Fact Sheets
  The Let’s Preserve Fact Sheet Series includes tested recipes and methods for canning 15 fruits and vegetables.

Preserving food at home is a rewarding way to capture the taste of New Hampshire grown fruits and vegetables to enjoy all year long!

Catherine Violette, Ph.D., R.D., L.D.
UNH Cooperative Extension Professor and Specialist, Food and Nutrition