Pressure canned potatoes

Today I canned potatoes for the first time ever! The plan is to use them in potato salad but started to wonder what other ways canned potatoes could be used for.

Does anyone have any recipe Ideas they would care to share?

Comments

  • vickeym
    vickeym Posts: 2,134 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I have used them mashed, in stews, soups, fried. Any way you would normally use potatoes. If you cut them into steak fries before canning them. Open the jar, drain them, rinse and pat dry then fry or bale. Much quicker since you only need to heat them and not wait for them to cook completely through. I like to keep not only potatoes canned, but if you have carrots and meat canned separately as well as broths it is pretty quick to open a jar of each and combine for a soup or stew.

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    I love using them to make a quick side dish by adding canned green beans, add some sauted onions and garlic with some homemade broth. You can easily make this into the main dish just by adding bacon pieces, ham chunks, sausage etc.

    They make the best scalloped potatoes or au gratin also. Use the same recipe as if you were making them from scratch. The only difference, the baking time is so much shorter.

    And my absolute favorite is still fresh snow peas with potatoes and onions. I absolutely love Spring and the fresh snow peas which come from the garden. Add any kind of spices you like or change them up all the time and that's the best. Just remember, snow peas only take minutes (maybe less) to cook. So saute your potatoes, onions and garlic first with the spices. Then when that is ready add your snow peas.

    All you want is them to go from medium green to slightly bright green then turn the stove off. Place the lid on the saucepan and they will finish themselves off with the steam in the pan. If you keep cooking them until they get bright green they will be all limp and slimy until you get to eating them.

  • Ruth Ann Reyes
    Ruth Ann Reyes Posts: 577 admin

    I've got this on the agenda for the weekend!!! I've seen folks in my rebel canning group 'dry canning' potatoes...and no by dehydrating and dry canning...Literally, canning them in a pressure canner w/out water! They say they fry up great. I'm not rebel enough to try it!

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    @Ruth Reyes-Loiacano Very interesting. I would have never thought to dry can potatoes. Might have to try a jar this year.

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    @Ruth Reyes-Loiacano and @torey I canned white potatoes for the first time last summer amidst many telling me not to because it could not be done.

    But I couldn't get anyone to tell me why I could can sweet potatoes but not white potatoes so I did it anyway to see what happened. I've been using them all Fall and Winter now and we are still here so it must have worked. But I did do some peeled and some not peeled to check if there was a difference in results - none that I can find.

    But if you are saying dry-pack them, then I would assume they can not be peeled or they would turn brownish from the oxidation. I won't use the citric acid wash so I wonder if I used lemon juice on a peeled jar with no skins and no water. Going to have to try this combo just to see how it works.

  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @greyfurball I don't suppose those who told you white potatoes couldn't be canned have ever shopped in the canned food section in the grocery store? (I used to buy canned potatoes for use when I went camping.)

    Obviously I find potatoes canned in liquid to be useful; I don't know why anyone would dry can them. If I want them dry, I will dehydrate them.

  • dottile46
    dottile46 Posts: 437 ✭✭✭

    @shllnzl I too have canned potatoes. My question is, why can't you can squash or pumpkin puree? All the university extension literature as well as the safe home preserving website say can't do it. I can buy the puree canned in the store. I've canned squash too, but in chunks.

  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @dottile46 I just grabbed my Ball Blue Book on Canning and Freezing copyright 1988. It has instructions for canning white and sweet potatoes. The book says you get a better product by freezing pumpkin and winter squash. (I confess that I bought this book years ago for use someday. So far, I have not attempted canning.)

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    @shllnzl and @dottile46 from what I understand the problem with squash and pumpkin puree is the texture. Whether it is steam canning or water bath canning, in-home canning equipment can not be guaranteed to get hot enough for the center of the food to get completely done (up to the necessary temps for preservation in the center of the jar).

    This is why we see many items in a store that are canned but we at home are recommended not to do it. Food processing temps are much higher than what we can obtain by using at-home equipment.

    To me though, that excuse should in no way refer to the white potato so I tried it anyway. The only logical excuse I have ever heard is because of the sugar content of the white potato it does take longer and a higher temp for the preservation to be "safe". So I just cooked mine an extra five minutes over the sweet potato recommendation time.

    And as I said, we're still here and not sick so far so I guess it worked.

  • soeasytocraft
    soeasytocraft Posts: 237 ✭✭✭

    @dottile46 your comment made me giggle. We all have someday intentions. lol Perhaps someday you will use your book for real. I took a number of years off from canning and started back into it a couple of years ago. My freezer got too full. 😁

  • Owl
    Owl Posts: 346 ✭✭✭

    I have canned potato soup and loved it until I got sick after eating it. I don’t know that the soup is what did it but I was careful to discard the rest of that batch. I was deathly ill for about 7 hours and it took a week to get back my strength and hydration!

    greyfurball I’m not sure but I think the reference to “dry canning” meant canning using steam in the pressure cooker by putting only minimal amounts of water in the bottom instead of the recommended cover of water. I haven’t tried this technique but I will definitely be trying it out this summer.

  • nksunshine27
    nksunshine27 Posts: 343 ✭✭✭

    mashed, fried, drained tossed in butter and parsley, breads and rolls, pasta, stews, soup oh my the uses are endless

  • soeasytocraft
    soeasytocraft Posts: 237 ✭✭✭

    Thanks for all the great ideas! Looking forward to opening our first jar tomorrow. By the sounds of it I might be firing up the pressure canner again.

  • Debora Salmon
    Debora Salmon Posts: 14 ✭✭✭

    I do not know If this applies to canning potatoes but according to many members of a dehydrating group I am in leaving peelings on increases chances of botulism...I am not experienced nor knowledgeable enough to know if this applies to canning them as well.

  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Debora Salmon My canning book says to peel potatoes.

  • vickeym
    vickeym Posts: 2,134 ✭✭✭✭✭

    This site full approved canning procedures and guidelines. I know many people also can using recipes that are not approved. But these are all approved recipes and from the folks who actually give the approvals.


    https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html