Canning Potatoes

I never canned potatoes.

Until today.

I always thought that canning potatoes was rather pointless. Don't potatoes keep well in the cellar without any kind of preserving?



But when we dug our potatoes this week and got many small potatoes, I decided to give canning a try. I knew that the little potatoes would not keep well. Unless I used them in a few weeks, they would start to shrivel up, and I was NOT going to peel those little things.


A few directions from my mom, got me started. She recommended cleaning the potatoes in the washing machine. It only took a few minutes in the rinse cycle to make them clean. A few more minutes on spin and they were finished.

Don't let the machine run any longer then necessary. The skin is so thin on new potatoes that it can start peeling off. And expect to have a very dirty washer afterwards. I put in a little bit of detergent and ran the rinse cycle to clean out the washing machine.


Next I cut out any blemishes. Besides small potatoes, I was also canning the potatoes that had bad spots or had gotten cut while digging - anything that would not keep well. I cut the potatoes into 1-2 inch chunks, unless they were tiny enough to go in whole. I added one tsp of salt to each quart jar and filled with water. The directions for my pressure canner said to can potatoes for 40 minutes at 11 lb pressure.Potatoes must be pressure canned.


Result: Canned potatoes that should be an instant meal, or addition to casserole this winter. And it really wasn't as much work as I thought it would be.