The Easiest Foods to Preserve That You Can Grow
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Looking for some plants that you can grow in your garden that you can easily preserve this fall? Here are some of my favorite things to grow and preserve!
The Easiest Foods to Preserve That You Can Grow
When it comes to canning and preserving season in late summer and fall, things can get hectic. Oftentimes there are so many different things that need to be preserved at the same time that it’s hard to know which way to turn and sometimes those items take a lot of prep work to preserve.
Today I wanted to share with you some of my favorite items to grow in my garden that are also the easiest to preserve. As you are planning out your garden this spring in hopes of canning or preserving some of the items, use these ideas to make things easier on yourself later this year!
Carrots
Carrots are both easy to grow and easy to preserve. You can grow many different varieties of carrots, some of which may grow better for you if you don’t have loose or sandy soil.
Preserving carrots is very easy. You can pressure can them to preserve them for a longer amount of time. Carrots just need to be peeled, sliced, and then can be pressure canned in just 25 minutes (for pints). You can find the full instructions on canning carrots here.
If you have a root cellar or cold storage like we do, you can also place carrots in there. We put ours in moist sand or sawdust in a tub (so they aren’t touching each other) and store them in the root cellar until they are ready to use. This method requires no peeling or cutting until you are ready to use them.
Green Beans
Probably one of my all-time favorite items to grow is green beans. They seem to grow well so matter what you do to them AND they even help to fix the soil with the nitrogen in the plants. I always think I plant way too many green beans and it’s never enough! And as for seeds, I’ve even grown the seeds from the dollar store and they work just fine!
Green Beans are the same as carrots when it comes to canning. They will need to be washed, cut, and then pressure canned for 20 minutes (for pints). I always have my kids help with the “cutting” (we just snap them!) and things go much faster. You can find the full instructions on canning green beans here.
You can also pickle green beans for another easy treat! I just use my basic pickling liquid for the beans. You can also follow this Pickled Beans recipe.
Of course, you can eat them fresh too! Here are Fresh Green Bean Recipes.
Herbs and Greens
I don’t really find herbs easy to grow (I’m working on it!) but I can grow greens like nobody’s business! Last year I began preserving these greens and we really enjoyed them all winter. It’s SO easy!
I’ve preserved everything from broccoli leaves to kale. You can do this in a dehydrator or in the sun. However, they seem to turn out the best in the dehydrator. Herbs can be dried either way and for most of mine, I dried them on my solar dehydrator last summer.
Here’s how to Preserve Greens!
Winter Squash
Another one of my favorite things to grow. I’m not quite sure why my winter squash plants always do well but I’m not complaining, we love squash! I like to grow everything from spaghetti squash to butternuts. This last year I even grew Blue Hubbards which reached 15lbs. That’s a lot of food from one plant!
We preserve winter squash by putting it in our root cellar or in cold storage. I don’t do anything else to it until it’s time to use it in a recipe.
Zucchini
I think Zucchini grows prolifically in most gardens so this is a great one to end our list with. We eat zucchini in SO many dishes so it’s worth it for us to grow as much as we can and then preserve it to use year round.
Two ways that I preserved zucchini last year that were incredibly easy was to shred and dry it (I rehydrate it later to use in baking recipes and stir fries) and to make it into Zucchini Pineapple. My kids absolutely love that stuff and it’s so easy to can! You can find the instructions for Zucchini Pineapple here. Just note that I used about 1/3 of the sugar that is called for in the recipe and we think it’s plenty sweet.
I used to always freeze zucchini and you can find that tutorial here. But I’ve found that drying zucchini takes up SO much less space and I don’t have to worry about using too much freezer space.
What are some foods that you plant that you think are really easy to preserve?
Merissa has been blogging about and living the simple life since 2009 and has internationally published 2 books on the topic. You can read about Merissa’s journey from penniless to the 100-acre farm and ministry on the About Page. You can send her a message any time from the Contact Page.
This blog post on the Easiest Foods to Preserve was originally posted on Little House Living in April 2022. It has been updated as of May 2023.
Thank you. We usually put up green beans and squash either by canning or freezing. We grow carrots and thanks to your instructions we may put up some this year. We also appreciate the information for herbs because we’ve started growing many of our own.
Have a blessed day.
How do you use zucchini pineapple?
My kids have been eating it just as a side dish with lunch or supper 🙂
I have very loose soil. What carrots do you recommend for that?
If the soil is loose you should have luck with most kinds of carrots because they will have the room to grow 🙂
Found this really interesting, It’s surprising we don’t do this more in the UK.
Hi what would be the quality for 2 kg carrots,zucchini,beans broccoli & cauliflower recipe.
Cheers
I love zucchini, but really don’t like it out of the freezer. I can’t wait to try it dehydrated. Thanks.
When it comes to canning here in Germany, we don’t have the pressure cooker option. So, it is sometimes a challenge to find ways to can veggies without the use of vinegar. I’ve discovered fermenting, which is a great way to “can” if you don’t like sour foods.
I do not have a pressure canner. I use the old fashioned way and can in a water bath. You just increase the time that the jars boil in the water. Keep the jars covered in water the whole time. I can everything, vegetables, fruit and meat. Been doing this for almost 40 years.
We have used pineapple zucchini in carrot cupcakes. Shred and can carrots in jelly jars for baking needs, already softened for baking. Have you used dehydrated zucchini for zucchini bread- dehydrating shreds was a bummer in my mind, but maybe you have a trick?
Last summer was our first time ever “garden”. We have had plants growing in buckets although.
I’ve canned things on occasion also, but last year we canned tomatoes and green beans, made my grandma’s chow chow and froze roasted peppers and corn. We are just now finishing off what we preserved. I got a dehydrator for Christmas so this year even more will go into our pantry!
Thank you for all your helpful hints and recipes.
Old Alabama Gardner has passed away now, but his videos are still up and he has one on canning summer squash like zucchini and yellow squash where they don’t fall apart into mush. I didn’t try it last year because I tried my squash in a new place and lost every one of them but this year I hope to be having plenty! Also Red Neck Hillbilly has a recipe on dehydrating zucchini to eat it like chips all year long! Healthy Chips, I like that!