With blueberries in full abundance for only a short time, we gather and preserve blueberries in as many ways as possible. The question is how to make blueberries last longer?
We use blueberries in smoothies, oatmeal, granola, in pies, or on top of ice cream as well as flavoring kefir and kombucha all winter long. If you are what you eat, then we have 5 blueberries in this family.
However, freezer space is very limited as we lost a large deep freezer and haven’t had the money to replace it.
For delicious fresh blueberry muffin recipes, read here.
I have 50lbs. of blueberries that I needed to store, and turned to canning to preserve them.
Some options that I usually turn to are freezing, canning, and dehydrating. They can store for up to a year without losing taste and quality, and I don’t have to worry about a power outage and losing them.
Get the recipe for raw blueberry jam here.
Blueberries Canning Recipe
When getting ready for canning blueberries, or any high acid food canning, you’ll want a few things:
- A clean surface to work on
- water bath or pressure canner
- clean jars and bands
- new lids (use new lids EACH time)
- rubber spatula to remove air bubbles
- First, get some blueberries. Easy enough, right? I got these at our local produce auction.
- Wash and remove stems.
- Layer 4 cups of blueberries and cover with 1 cup of sugar in a large pot.
- Continue with those layers until the pot is about 2/3 full. You don’t want to overcrowd the berries at all.
- Let sit for about an hour or so, until the berries begin to glisten. They get so pretty!
- Turn the pot on medium-high heat until the blueberries and juice begin to boil gently for 5 minutes.
- Ladle into hot quart jars and water bath for 20 minutes.
- Remove from boiling water, let cool and test the seals.
- Any that didn’t seal should be refrigerated and eaten within a week or so.
- Wipe down the rest of the jars and store in a cool, dry place for up to a year.
- For pressure canning blueberries, process for 5 minutes on 5 pounds pressure.
- Allow canner to cool, then remove and cool jars.
Heather’s homesteading journey started in 2006, with baby steps: first, she got a few raised beds, some chickens, and rabbits. Over the years, she amassed a wealth of homesteading knowledge, knowledge that you can find in the articles of this blog.
In your blueberry canning instructions, for someone like me who has never canned before, how full do you fill the jar, do you place lids on that you have previously boiled??? Thanks
You want the lids to be hot, but you want to use NEW lids each time you can. You don’t want to reuse the same regular canning lids, as this could lead to a seal failure.
Coming from Green Mom’s Network FB support thread! I love blueberries. Have been wanting to can some jams/jellies. Just finished canning apple butter.
Cool! I never thought of canning blueberries. We always froze them growing up!
It is my mission that next year I begin canning, this post makes it seem fairly easy.
Yum!!! I am going to have to go get some more blueberries so I can make some for the winter!!!
Can I just put blueberries in the jar without adding sugar and pectin?