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cold pack beef veg soup #213263

Asked September 19, 2014, 3:05 PM EDT

i do not have a pressure canner so can i cold pack can alreadt cooked beef veg soup

County

Expert Response

Thank you for using the Ask an Expert feature of eXtension.

The short answer to your question is, no, to safely can beef vegetable soup requires a pressure canner. An alternative though would be to freeze the soup.

Now for the longer answer/explanation...

Canning is a two step process: first make the food safe, then keep it safe. The keeping it safe part is the part most people are familiar with. It requires that the jar of food be securely sealed and stored properly so it stays sealed. The first step - making the food safe - is the part that is often overlooked or misunderstood. In order to store food long term at room temperature, the food must first be made safe to handle those conditions. For low acid foods like meat and vegetables, this means heating the food to temperatures higher than boiling temperatures. To reach the higher temperature, pressure is required.

Even for cooked soup, if you think about it, you wouldn't leave a container of it in your refrigerator for six months - it would spoil. Likewise, simply by sealing it in a jar, it still wouldn't be safe to sit on a shelf for any length of time. The dangerous part about considering this option is that the spoilage that would most likely happen with vegetables (botulism) and meat (E. coli) cannot be seen, smelled or tasted, like it would be with something we might find at the back of the fridge months later. For this reason, it is recommended to preserve it safely in the first place to avoid the hazards of botulism and/or E. coli.

Directions for doing this can be found at http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/soups.html.

Again, if you don't have a pressure canner, you might try borrowing one. Otherwise, the soup could be frozen and stored that way, if freezer space is available. Another option could be to dry the main components (vegetables and meat) for shelf-stable storage and rehydrate and make the soup when ready to use.

I hope this is helpful. And thank you again for using Ask an Expert. If you still have questions, please feel free to ask.

An Ask Extension Expert Replied September 23, 2014, 11:42 AM EDT

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