Canning Mushrooms

I seldom buy canned goods from the store.  Oh there are still a few things I need like tuna, sardines, tomato paste, soup for the kids if I'm out of my own and maybe some beef broth. Then some special things like calamata olives, capers, marinated artichokes etc

I stopped buying canned mushrooms a few years ago. I either use the fresh mushrooms from the store or break into my stash of frozen or dried wild mushrooms that I have foraged. This week Aldi had a sale on white button mushrooms 8 oz. packs for $0.69. I haven't seen that price for awhile so I bought a case (12 packs). Of course, I had to do it in two trips because there was a limit of 6.


 I have never canned mushrooms before, so I was looking forward to putting some away. I tried to get small mushrooms, but the packages were filled with larger ones. I selected packs that seemed to have the youngest mushrooms. when I got home, I cut the stems off of each mushroom, then quartered or cut into even smaller pieces.


I soaked the mushrooms for a few minutes, drained off the water then dumped them in to a pot of hot water along with a generous pinch of thyme and couple shakes of garlic powder and a glug or two of lemon juice, then occasionally stirred them until they were boiling for 5 minutes.

I drained them, saving the fragrant liquid and filled half pint jars with the mushrooms. I added 1/4 tsp of canning salt to each jar and filled the jars with the mushroom liquid leaving 1 inch of headroom. Following approved pressure canning procedures they were canned at 10lb PSI for 45 minutes.

The yield was 12 half pints .. so each 8 oz .box of whole mushrooms gave me a 8 oz jar. As the saying goes, a pound's a pint the world round! As each box was 69 cents each half pint was 69 cents. A 7oz jar of "Great Value" mushrooms was advertised at 98 cents. So this is a deal and it's better than what I can get in the store. I'm heading back to Aldi ... maybe I can get more.






Comments

Popular Posts