Canning Chili

This tutorial for canning chili is perfect for the fall and winter months when you don’t have a lot of produce to can but still want to fill your pantry shelves with homemade food.

What’s especially lovely about canning is that you can make your own “convenience food” to have on hand for busy days or bad weather when power outages are common.

This is especially present in my mind with everything that has been happening with hurricanes Helene and Milton.

While we personally don’t live in an area where hurricanes are a concern, we have experienced severe power outages occasionally due to storms and ice.

In those cases, it’s nice to have food ready to go when you don’t have water for easy clean up or depend on candles to light your kitchen.

And, of course, it doesn’t have to be for emergencies. I use a lot of home-canned soups and meals on Sunday for a quick lunch when we all get home hungry from church. It helps keep my Sunday calm!

That said, making chili to can is a little bit of an involved process because a fair amount of pre-cooking needs to happen. Still, when it’s just as easy to make a large batch as a small one, I think it is no different than making dinner for my family and canning the leftovers.

Ingredients for canning chili

As you would expect, the ingredients for canning chili are pretty much the ingredients in any other chili. Some things need to be more exacting when you’re canning, such as salt content, so we won’t necessarily be seasoning to taste – that can come after you open the jars.

• Ground beef (or pork). This is the basis for chili. Or at least, it is in Texas. Chili con carne – not sin carne.
• Onions. Imperative for flavor.
• Garlic. Same
• Beans. This is the hotly debated ingredient in chili. I love beans. They’re tasty, and they lower the cost per serving, so it’s a win all around. However, if you don’t like beans in your chili, leave them out. This will change your overall volume, so the number of jars this recipe fills will differ if you don’t make it up with extra ground beef, tomatoes, etc.
• Bay leaf. This helps break down the enzyme inhibitors in the beans as they cook, making them more digestible.
• Crushed tomatoes. For making the chili sauce
• Chili powder – because it is chili, after all
• Cumin. Not all chili recipes call for cumin, but I think it’s just as essential as chili powder in the flavor it adds.
• Oregano. More flavor.
• Black pepper, another flavoring
• Salt. Important for both flavoring and preserving. We’ll add this to each jar rather than the batch at large.

Ingredients changes and substitutions

With canning recipes, you want to be careful when making substitutions. While I don’t necessarily hold to every word of the official canning recommendations, you need to be aware of acid content, salt, etc. And know when something is safe to can based on those things, plus the ability of heat to penetrate your food item (i.e., when home caning, you don’t want to can solid packed pumpkin or winter squash because it’s both a low-acid food, and the solid packing makes it challenging to process adequately.).

That said, there are a number of changes you can make in a recipe like this to suit your own taste.

Adding peppers. Bell peppers are a fairly common addition to chili con carne recipes. If you wish to add them to yours, dice them up and cook them along with the onions. The same is true for other peppers.

Changing the amount of onions/garlic/seasonings. The only seasoning that you shouldn’t change is the salt. Other than that, feel free to add more or less seasonings. Do keep in mind, though, as you taste your batch of chili, that the flavors will intensify after canning, so you might want to stop as just enough or just under enough seasoning in your chili.

Different kinds of beans. I use red beans. I like their size and texture. Pinto or kidney beans also work well. For the recipe’s purpose, it doesn’t matter what kind of beans you decide to use. Black beans are also a good swap for making black bean chili.

Tomatoes. I use crushed tomatoes. You can also use an equivalent amount of tomato paste with beef broth, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, etc. Whatever floats your boat.

Ground beef. Everyone has their own preference for chili beef – some people don’t use beef at all, preferring coarsely ground pork. Regardless, just use the equivalent amount of meat.

How to Can Chili

1. Wash beans and place them in a large pot. Cover with water 2-3 inches above the beans, cover, and bring to a boil.
2. Boil for ten minutes, drain, wash thoroughly, and place back in the pot with bay leaves. Cover with 2-3 inches of fresh water, and bring back to a boil. (Note: You can cook them in an instant pot, as seen below. This tutorial shows you how to degas and cook beans in your instant pot).
   
3. Boil until just tender.
4. While the beans boil, Dice onions and mince garlic.
5. Brown ground beef with the onions, using a spatula or other tool to crumble and stir beef as it browns.
   
6. When beef is browned, drain excess grease and place in a large pan or bowl.
7. Add garlic, seasonings, crushed tomatoes, and water or beef broth.
   
8. When beans are done cooking, drain and remove bay leaves.
   
9. Stir into the beef mixture, and mix thoroughly.
   
10. Ladle chili into prepared canning jars, leaving about 1/2 inch headspace.
11. Top with salt at a rate of 1 teaspoon for quarts and 1/2 teaspoon for pints.
    
12. Wipe rims with a clean cloth to remove any debris.
13. Screw down the lids and rings firmly.
14. Prepare a pressure canner with the appropriate amount of water (usually two quarts for a 16-quart canner) and a canning rack.
15. Arrange jars in the canner and lock the lid onto the canner with the steam valve open.
    
16. Heat over medium-high heat until a strong, steady stream of steam escapes.
17. Continue to let the steam vent for ten minutes.
18. Close the valve, and bring to ten pounds of pressure at sea leave, or fifteen pounds for above 1,000 feet elevation.
19. Process quarts for 90 minutes or pints for 75 minutes.
20. After processing time, remove the canner from heat, and let it return to zero pressure before unlocking the lid.
21. The easiest thing to do here is to let jars continue cooling inside the canner until they’re safe to handle. If needed, you can remove jars, using a towel to shield them from drafts that could break them, and yourself from possible hot glass and food if one does fail.
22. Place on a towel-lined surface, and cover with another towel to shield from drafts until cool.
23. After 24 hours, check for seal, wash jars if needed, and store in a cool place out of direct light.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to use a pressure canner?

Yes, a pressure canner is needed to can chili. While you may hear of “rebel canning” methods of canning meats and beans with a water bath canner, this is an unsafe method. This means that you can and will lose a lot of jars to spoilage because the heat in a water bath canner is not sufficient to fully neutralize the bacteria in these low-acid foods. There is old order Amish sects that don’t believe in using pressure canners, as they are a “modern invention,” and water bath all of their food. Because of that, these communities are where most of the home-canned food injuries occur and where a lot of hard work goes down the drain due to food spoilage. This is a drum I’ll forever beat. Using a pressure canner is easy. It’s a one-time investment. Get one and use it. I like to stick with a simple canner like this one to make life easy.

Where do I get bulk canning lids?

The most annoying thing about canning is the constant need for new lids. It is possible, though not recommended by official sources, to reuse lids, but even by doing that, they will eventually wear out. The rubber melts, the lid gets bent, etc. I usually order replacements from Denali Canning. I’ve been using their lids for a few years now, and I still have yet to have one not seal. In fact, they have a money-back guarantee to seal.

Can I make chili without beans?

Yes. I recommend making up the lost volume by omitting the beans with more ground beef or just having a more soupy chili. It’s up to you.

What size jars should I use for canning chili?

It’s up to you. All are canned with the same pressure, only the time changes (65 minutes for half pints, 75 for pints, and 90 minutes for quarts). I usually do a mix of both pint and quart. Usually, a quart feeds my family, but if they’re extra hungry, I’ll open a pint to go with it.

How to Use home-canned chili

Home canning is all about quality control and keeping your food safe for consuming. Improperly canned food can carry the risk of botulism. Food with a weak seal can spoil in storage, etc. So it’s important to follow canning safety procedures both so you don’t waste food, and so your food is safe.

• Always inspect the seal before opening. Make sure the jars are firmly sealed.
• Inspect food for color and texture. Make sure there’s no discoloration, mold, or texture changes.
• Inspect the smell. The food should smell the same when you open it as when you put it in, though perhaps a little stronger as the seasoning has permeated the food over time.
• When in doubt, throw it out. No aversion to food waste is worth risking yourself for.
• Once you have assured that the chili is good, pour it from the jar into a saucepan, and heat over medium heat to a simmer. It’s best to simmer or boil canned food for 10 minutes or more.
• Serve with crackers, corn chips, gluten-free cornbread, etc.

More canning recipes for you

• Home canned chicken soup
• How to can vegetable soup
• How to can deer meat
• How to can chili beans
• Canning baked beans

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