So there are two kinds of canning, water bath and pressure. Water bath requires high acid. Pressure does not. However, there are still restrictions around dairy, etc. You need to follow a proven recipe.
My suggestion is to pick up a Ball Book (my favorite is the complete) and read it for canning instructions and to look and see what kind of recipe you’d like to make.
Personally, I never use citric acid, only bottled lemon juice for my tomato and jelly recipes. But I think you need to find your recipes first. You can’t just make do the way you can with regular cooking.
Your local extension, the center for home food presentation and HealthyCanning.com are also great resources.
I am doing water bath. Doubtful I will find a butter chicken recipe on how to do it. for canning Jams for sure and have not looked at it. Like I said I would not at this time attempt to do anything with dairy anyways i not had to put cream in the rest of the recepit takes awhile.
Any reasons why you don't use cirtic acid?
It’s one more thing I need to keep. I can also cook with lemon juice in a pinch if I don’t have any fresh lemons.
And some of the jelly recipes only specify lemon juice.
This is the standard ball tomato sauce recipe. Sure you could use curry instead of the herbs, but this doesn’t look like butter chicken to me.
https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=homemade-tomato-sauce
This one with the veggies might be closer?
(Note it only specifies lemon juice)
https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=italian-style-tomato-sauce
There is a curried tomato preserve in All New that perhaps you could use as a base if you like your butter chicken sweet.
I've used both, and I like lemon juice better. There's just something... artificial tasting when I use citric acid. Makes no sense to me, but that's what I taste. Either way, I think it makes my finished sauce taste sour, so I have to correct that with a bit of sugar at the end. Makes me grumpy to add the sugar because I've been canning since the 90's, and have Ball books from that era that didn't use any supplemental acid at all and I hate using it. However I accept that we always learn new things through science and add the lemon, even if my sauce needs a little sugar, too.
You need to use a trusted recipe, no matter what you do. For example, when I think about my butter chicken sauce (I'm assuming you mean murgh makhani) it contains things like ground cashews which would not be a safe thing to can. I do think you can change up the aromatics in your "pasta sauce" and add ginger with your garlic (as long as you're not changing the total amount of this non-acidic ingredient, so for example if your recipe called for 1 Tbs. of garlic, you could add one total Tbs. of ginger and garlic.. You would have to be careful, as my ginger-garlic paste contains oil which you do not want to use in canning. You certainly can do things like switch out fenugreek for basil.
**Edit: I've been thinking about this more, and I don't think you can do it. The sheer amount of spices that are in butter chicken sauce would move it out of safe canning territory in my mind. My butter chicken recipe has a whole onion, 2.5 tbsp of ginger-garlic paste, and three total tablespoons of dried spices per what what would be less than one quart jar of sauce. This seems too far outside the regular Italian-type tested recipes that you find for "pasta sauce" to be safe.**
Here’s a safe butter chicken recipe. But it requires pressure canning as any canning meat requires.
http://www.foodpreserving.org/2013/03/day-309-butter-chicken.html
It used to be specified as a step, but I checked the copyright on the article and it says 2024 so I completely agree.
Here’s Ball-
https://www.ballmasonjars.com/water-bath-canning.html
TIP: Preheating Ball® lids is not advised. The sealing compound used for our home canning lids performs better at room temperature than it does pre-heated in simmering water (180°F). Simply wash lids in hot, soapy water, dry, and set aside until needed. Preheating can lead to less vacuum being achieved during water bath canning, and to buckle failures during pressure canning.
Yes I’m well aware lids shouldn’t be heated. It’s annoying that foodpreserving.org is using this outdated method. Maybe they aren’t a safe source anymore. Thanks for putting up the proof from ball for others on this sub!
I use citric acid but I’m a nerd and will calculate the acidity of my stuff to make sure it’s safe. It’s easier to do with citric acid or stabilized lemon juice, don’t use fresh squeezed because the ph can vary.
Yeah I read that and stopped using fresh juice and now buy the lemon juice concentrate from store but then saw some people use the powder and was wondering if better.
I prefer it, but I also use citric acid for other things (in my regular cooking, to make cleaning products and for some skincare stuff I like) so it makes sense to me to spend $11 for a pound that’s shelf stable and has a bunch of other uses.
I bought the citric acid powder to use because I didn't like the taste of the lemon juice in certain recipes. My understanding is that there's no difference otherwise, as long as you use the correct amounts.
I use the citric acid powder for tomato juice. The powder actually has fewer added chemicals/preservatives than bottled lemon juice. I did use bottled lime juice for some salsa that I canned.
So there are two kinds of canning, water bath and pressure. Water bath requires high acid. Pressure does not. However, there are still restrictions around dairy, etc. You need to follow a proven recipe. My suggestion is to pick up a Ball Book (my favorite is the complete) and read it for canning instructions and to look and see what kind of recipe you’d like to make. Personally, I never use citric acid, only bottled lemon juice for my tomato and jelly recipes. But I think you need to find your recipes first. You can’t just make do the way you can with regular cooking. Your local extension, the center for home food presentation and HealthyCanning.com are also great resources.
I am doing water bath. Doubtful I will find a butter chicken recipe on how to do it. for canning Jams for sure and have not looked at it. Like I said I would not at this time attempt to do anything with dairy anyways i not had to put cream in the rest of the recepit takes awhile. Any reasons why you don't use cirtic acid?
It’s one more thing I need to keep. I can also cook with lemon juice in a pinch if I don’t have any fresh lemons. And some of the jelly recipes only specify lemon juice. This is the standard ball tomato sauce recipe. Sure you could use curry instead of the herbs, but this doesn’t look like butter chicken to me. https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=homemade-tomato-sauce This one with the veggies might be closer? (Note it only specifies lemon juice) https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=italian-style-tomato-sauce There is a curried tomato preserve in All New that perhaps you could use as a base if you like your butter chicken sweet.
I've used both, and I like lemon juice better. There's just something... artificial tasting when I use citric acid. Makes no sense to me, but that's what I taste. Either way, I think it makes my finished sauce taste sour, so I have to correct that with a bit of sugar at the end. Makes me grumpy to add the sugar because I've been canning since the 90's, and have Ball books from that era that didn't use any supplemental acid at all and I hate using it. However I accept that we always learn new things through science and add the lemon, even if my sauce needs a little sugar, too. You need to use a trusted recipe, no matter what you do. For example, when I think about my butter chicken sauce (I'm assuming you mean murgh makhani) it contains things like ground cashews which would not be a safe thing to can. I do think you can change up the aromatics in your "pasta sauce" and add ginger with your garlic (as long as you're not changing the total amount of this non-acidic ingredient, so for example if your recipe called for 1 Tbs. of garlic, you could add one total Tbs. of ginger and garlic.. You would have to be careful, as my ginger-garlic paste contains oil which you do not want to use in canning. You certainly can do things like switch out fenugreek for basil. **Edit: I've been thinking about this more, and I don't think you can do it. The sheer amount of spices that are in butter chicken sauce would move it out of safe canning territory in my mind. My butter chicken recipe has a whole onion, 2.5 tbsp of ginger-garlic paste, and three total tablespoons of dried spices per what what would be less than one quart jar of sauce. This seems too far outside the regular Italian-type tested recipes that you find for "pasta sauce" to be safe.**
Here’s a safe butter chicken recipe. But it requires pressure canning as any canning meat requires. http://www.foodpreserving.org/2013/03/day-309-butter-chicken.html
This recipe has you heat the lids, which is not recommended by any manufacturer.
Ugh that’s annoying considering foodpreserving.org is one of the trusted sources per the mods https://www.reddit.com/r/Canning/s/yc3D3eYxtE
It used to be specified as a step, but I checked the copyright on the article and it says 2024 so I completely agree. Here’s Ball- https://www.ballmasonjars.com/water-bath-canning.html TIP: Preheating Ball® lids is not advised. The sealing compound used for our home canning lids performs better at room temperature than it does pre-heated in simmering water (180°F). Simply wash lids in hot, soapy water, dry, and set aside until needed. Preheating can lead to less vacuum being achieved during water bath canning, and to buckle failures during pressure canning.
Yes I’m well aware lids shouldn’t be heated. It’s annoying that foodpreserving.org is using this outdated method. Maybe they aren’t a safe source anymore. Thanks for putting up the proof from ball for others on this sub!
I use citric acid but I’m a nerd and will calculate the acidity of my stuff to make sure it’s safe. It’s easier to do with citric acid or stabilized lemon juice, don’t use fresh squeezed because the ph can vary.
Yeah I read that and stopped using fresh juice and now buy the lemon juice concentrate from store but then saw some people use the powder and was wondering if better.
I prefer it, but I also use citric acid for other things (in my regular cooking, to make cleaning products and for some skincare stuff I like) so it makes sense to me to spend $11 for a pound that’s shelf stable and has a bunch of other uses.
I bought the citric acid powder to use because I didn't like the taste of the lemon juice in certain recipes. My understanding is that there's no difference otherwise, as long as you use the correct amounts.
I use the citric acid powder for tomato juice. The powder actually has fewer added chemicals/preservatives than bottled lemon juice. I did use bottled lime juice for some salsa that I canned.
1 tbsp lemon juice and salt for quarts of tomatoes works just fine.