I love the idea of having cooked potatoes on the shelf for a quick meal. I admit I was skeptical about how canned potatoes would turn out so I made a small batch first to test them out. I opened one of the jars and fried up the potatoes in butter with a bit of onion and they were delicious so I carried on with doing more. I found that new Yukon Gold potatoes seem to be the best ones for me.
The recipe I used is derived from the classic Ball Blue Book. I’ve processed 8 pints and 10 quarts. That should help see us through the winter!
Ingredients
- 2 – 3 pounds white potatoes per quart
- Salt – 1 tsp. for each quart jar or 1/2 tsp. for each pint jar (The recipe says this is optional. I used it.)
- Water
Instructions
Wash potatoes well. Very well. The recipe indicates that the potatoes need to be peeled but I found a lot of conflicting options about this step on the internet. Since I never peel new potatoes when I’m cooking them normally, I elected to skip this step. I did, however, take great care to ensure the potatoes were clean and cut out any eyes or blemishes.
Rinse potatoes again.
Leave small potatoes whole; cut large ones into desired sized pieces.
Cover with water in a large pot and boil for 10 minutes. (I only boiled them for 5 minutes as I was afraid they would end up mushy after processing.)
Pack hot potatoes into jars and add salt to each jar if desired.
Add boiling water to each jar leaving 1 inch head space.
Using a non-metallic tool, remove air bubbles.
Process at 10 pounds pressure–pints 35 minutes, quarts 40 minutes. For my altitude here in Kamloops I need to process at 11 pounds pressure. You need to check the altitude for your location and adjust accordingly.
