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How to Can Ground Beef for Long-Term Storage

Whitetail Acres Homemade

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Canning ground beef at home! We pressure canned 43 pounds of our own farm-raised ground beef and ended up with 27 quart jars of shelf-stable, ready-to-use meat for quick family meals all year long.

🥩🫙 Having home-canned ground beef on the shelf makes busy-night meals so much easier. Just pop a jar open and use it for tacos, chili, spaghetti meat sauce, casseroles, sloppy joes, soups and so many other ground beef recipes, without needing to thaw and cook meat first. It's also a big part of our long-term food storage plan: a shelf-stable protein that doesn't depend on the freezer or electricity during storms and power outages.

In this video, I walk you through the whole pressure canning project: browning the ground beef in a wok so the fat is easy to drain, hot packing it plain (no salt or seasoning) with boiling water and 1 inch of headspace, debubbling and wiping the rims with vinegar, venting both pressure canners for 10 minutes, and processing quarts at 10 pounds of pressure for 90 minutes. Then we check the seals the next morning and get the jars ready for the pantry. If you're new to canning meat, or you've wondered how to can meat in mason jars, this is a real look at a full-size canning day.

⚠️ Safety note: When pressure canning meat, always follow a current, tested recipe from a trusted source (such as the National Center for Home Food Preservation, your state extension office, or the Ball canning books), and adjust your pressure for your elevation. Ground beef must be pressure canned. It is not safe for water bath canning.

What is the first meal you would make with a jar of home-canned ground beef? Let me know in the comments!

If you enjoy canning, food preservation, long-term food storage, pantry stocking and cooking from scratch, please subscribe to Whitetail Acres Homemade. We have many more pantry projects coming!

CHAPTERS
00:00 Why we pressure can ground beef
03:07 43 pounds of ground beef & our wok method
05:15 Why we don't season the meat
09:38 Prepping the pressure canner
11:21 Filling the jars & 1 inch headspace
13:04 Debubbling & wiping the rims
15:29 Venting & bringing the canner to pressure
20:08 Loading the second pressure canner
21:48 Opening the canners
24:05 Checking seals & the final jar count
25:53 Cleaning, labeling & storing the jars
27:19 More preservation coming

#CanningGroundBeef #PressureCanning #CanningMeat #FoodStorage #FoodPreservation #PantryStocking #Homesteading

12 Comments

@WhitetailAcresHomemade Creator 2 days ago Pinned

Quick correction: in the intro I said 42 pounds, but we actually canned 43 pounds of our farm-raised ground beef, which gave us 27 quart jars (about 1.5 lb per jar). 🫙🥩

Our process in short: brown the beef, drain the fat, hot pack it plain with boiling water and 1 inch of headspace, then process quarts at 10 lb pressure for 90 minutes (adjust for your elevation, and always follow a tested recipe).

Now I'm curious: what's the first meal you'd make with a jar of home-canned ground beef? Tacos? Chili? Spaghetti sauce? Tell us below! 👇

@PylypkoFamilyFarm 15 hours ago

43 pounds of ground beef and 27 jars — that’s a seriously productive day! 😄 I love seeing how other families preserve food for the months ahead. There’s something so satisfying about looking at a shelf full of food you prepared yourself. Great video! ❤

@Christy6000 1 day ago

Thank you for another great video! I’ve been canning chicken and roast beef and some ham since 2019. I currently I’ve been dehydrating my gound beef which turns out perfect, but takes a very long time. I haven’t canned ground beef yet, because some people I know don’t seem to like it. I wondered if you could video a meal sometime using your ground beef. You have become one of my favorite homesteaders on YouTube. Take care and have a wonderful day. 😊

@Mariana_Feliz 1 day ago

I did this in January prepping for a busy sports season for my kids it was soooo helpful and convenient to have on hand. I also like the flavor better than pre cooked and frozen.

@JakeJacobs-y5r 1 day ago

Thank you I’ve been doing this years.

@lindachandler2293 4 hours ago

I love my canned ground meat, but in my case it's usually ground deer. Good for all the same things and quick! I do keep some ground meat in the freezer for burgers and meatloaf, etc.

@1g412 1 day ago

Get a blue star range, usa made .its a beast love mine 😊❤

@ohioladybug7390 2 days ago (edited)

Great video. I have canned taco meat but felt it lost a lot of flavor. I’ve yet to can plain ground beef but need to try a small test batch 🤔. I could add the taco seasoning when I go to use it. Thanks for sharing how to do it. EDIT - I meant to say congrats on the beef. We are getting ready to put our order in for another half a cow. There is nothing like farm, fresh beef.

@rawwetzel 1 day ago

We would can are venison scraps instead of grinding. On a busy day dump in in a pot warm it up with some potatoes and dinner is done.

@teresawebster3498 10 hours ago

When I first started canning I didn’t like the idea of adding salt to the food, but I have since changed my mind. I now add either a teaspoon or 1/2 teaspoon to what I am canning. I can food as a backup, just in case something happens. After the covid year, I realized that we may not always get the foods we are looking for at the stores. Salt is not only a seasoning, but it is also essential for our body. If you are eating foods that do not have some natural salts, if there is such a thing, then you need to get salt from somewhere. That is just my thought process. The amount of salt in my canned food is never more than I cook with, but if I didn’t have salt, it is in my food. I hope that makes sense. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Janiece9079 1 hour ago

No, it's better pressure canned. I add peppers, onions. Whatever. Chicken even better.

@samauthor342 18 hours ago

8:54 Why, why, why would you throw that fat into the trash can 😮?! There must be something you can do with it! Make suet balls for wild birds even! Or make soap? Or cook with it? What’s wrong with the fat?!