I love making this easy canned beef stew to keep around for whenever I don’t want to make dinner. It’s a hearty and tasty stew that is up to comparison with a restaurant dish. I enjoy eating it over rice or egg noodles, with a glass of red wine, but you can transform it into anything you want.
This Easy Canned Beef Stew Will Be Your Favorite New Dinner Dish
Why make meat stew? Why can it?
These are good questions that I often get asked. The reason I like this is that meat products can be canned safely and carefully to have an equally tasty result as the fresh counterpart.
This meat stew came to me because I had a ton of stew meat left. And with summer approaching, I knew it would go bad. I still wanted to make something delicious, so I noticed that I had just the right amount of carrots, celery, and onions. What better combination can you find for these vegetables than a beef stew?
I love canning meats, but it is a process that requires safety and attention to detail. You do need a pressure canner, as this is the only way to prevent botulism and possible spoilage.
Another key factor in this process is browning the meat before you make the stew. This truly seals the flavors in and preserves them better. Once my stew was ready, I put it into glass jars that were already in the pressure canner, ready to go.
Also, I would suggest that you process the jars according to the size of them and the altitude you live at. Once processed, I always let my jars cool down by turning the pressure to zero.
Remember to allow your cans to cool down properly; otherwise, the product may spoil. When sufficiently cooled, I keep mine in the fridge for those days when I’m feeling too lazy to think too hard about dinner.
This is a unique creation that I love and I hope you will too!
Easy Canned Beef Stew
Ingredients
5 lb (2.2 kg) beef stew meat, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
1 tbsp vegetable oil
12 medium potatoes, peeled, cubed
16 small carrots, sliced
5 celery stalks, chopped
4 small onion, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp salt
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp pepper
water
Directions
- Brown beef stew meat in oil using a large saucepan.
- Mix vegetables and seasoning to browned meat.
- Add boiling water, ensuring meat is covered completely.
- Bring stew to boil.
- Once boiling, remove from heat.
- Have pressure canner ready.
- Heat jars. Simmer don’t boil.
- Gently ladle stew into hot jars, Ensure 1 inch (2.5 cm) of headspace.
- Remove trapped air bubbles by running a spatula around the inside of the jar.
- Wipe jar rim with a clean damp cloth.
- Apply lid and ring. Adjust to fingertip-tightness.
- Process jars in pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure for 1 hour and 15 minutes (adjust for altitude).
- Turn heat off, cool canner to zero pressure.
- Wait 5 minutes before opening canner lid. Let jars cool in canner for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove jars from canner and cool thoroughly.
- After 24 hours, check the seal on lids by pressing down the center, it shouldn’t wiggle and must feel nice and solid.
