This step-by-step tutorial will teach you about Canning Pumpkin safely in a pressure cooker. Preserving pumpkins give you so many recipe options – pumpkin puree, pie filling, or even pumpkin butter.
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A few hours spent pumpkin canning will keep you out of the stores looking for those (always!) dented cans of pumpkin. Home-canned pumpkin cubes give you so many options for baking and cooking amazing dishes.
Can You can Pumpkin In a Water Bath?
Sadly, no. The density of pumpkin puree is too thick for the home canner to safely heat to the core and kill botulism spores. Yikes, just don’t go messing around with that.
Nor are you able to safely can pumpkin puree in a water bath or pressure canner. I’m sorry, these things are just not safe for the home canner.
If you’re not down with canning pumpkin cubes or don’t have a pressure canner, you can totally freeze pumpkin puree if you’d like. Make sure you use wide-mouth jars and don’t fill them too full. You can also freeze in these reusable silicone ziploc-style bags. or in 1-cup Souper Cubes.
If you already have your pressure canner out, you might consider canning beets, canning peas, canning potatoes, canning corn, canning chicken broth, or canning carrots, which are other recipes that cannot be safely preserved in a water bath canner.
Canning Pumpkin Supplies
Check out this in-depth post for a complete list of canning supplies.
You’ll need:
- Pumpkin (for best results, select those listed as “pie pumpkins”)
- Pressure Canner
- Large saucepan (I use my enameled dutch oven)
- Canning funnel
- Pint or quart canning jars (thrift stores are my favorite sources for these!)
- Slotted spoon
- New canning lids and clean rings
- Jar lifter
- Ball Blue Book of Home Preserving
- Cutting board
- Sharp chef’s knife and a paring knife
Pumpkin Canning – Step by Step
*I’ll walk you through it here with photos, and you’ll find a detailed and printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Wash and sanitize your jars. You’ll want to keep them warm to avoid having them crack when placed in the canner. You can fill them with hot water, or place them on a tray in the oven at 170 degrees F.
Wash your lids and set them aside in a clean place. You no longer need to simmer lids in water to keep them sterile. Woot!
Wash and dry the pumpkin and then cut it in half, slightly on one side of the stem. Remove the stem from the section that has it.
Remove the innards using a spoon. It’s ok to not get all the strings out of it; we’ll deal with it later. Pro tip: save the pumpkin seeds for making Pumpkin Seed Butter or White Cheddar Salted Pumpkin Seeds!
Lay one half of the pumpkin, cavity side down, and slice it like you’re slicing a melon. Repeat with the other half. Cutting it this way with the gooey side facing down prevents the pumpkin from sliding around, and keeps your fingers intact.
Place the slices onto a plate and microwave for 1 minute. This will soften the pumpkin to make the next step easier.
Using a paring knife, take one of the slices, cut the rind off of it, and then the inner side as well. Cut into 1-inch chunks. Repeat with the rest of the pumpkin.
Bring two pots of water to a boil. In one of the pots, add the pumpkin in batches and cook for 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the pumpkin and put them into warm and sanitized canning jars.
Use boiling water from the second pot and carefully ladle it over the pumpkin chunks, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Headspace is defined as the space between the top of the food and the top of the jar. Remove the bubbles from the jar (I use a plastic chopstick).
Use a wet clean rag and wipe the rim of the jars to make sure it is free of any food.
Place a clean lid on the jar and tighten the ring to fingertip tight (tight enough that it won’t come off, but not so tight that the Hulk couldn’t budge it).
Lower your jars into the canner using a jar lifter. Lock the lid. Soon, steam will start coming through the vent pipe (I call it the steam chimney). Allow the steam to pass through for about 10 minutes.
Then put the pressure regulator (I call it the chimney cap) on top. Pretty soon, the air vent will pop up. That is a sign that you’re starting to build pressure inside the canner.
Pumpkin needs to be pressure canned at 11 pounds of pressure for 55 minutes (pints) and 90 minutes (quarts).
See the chart below for any changes to processing times.
When the dial gauge reaches 11 pounds of pressure, reduce the burner temp to medium, and start your timer. The pressure must stay at 11 or (a little bit) above for the duration of the cooking time. You’ll likely need to adjust the temp on the burner a few times depending on your stove.
When the time is up, remove the canner from the burner and allow it to sit until you hear a distinctive “click” of the air vent dropping. Remove the pressure regulator and carefully remove the lid (Pro tip: I always use oven mitts when I take the lid off because the steam is crazy hot).
Let the jars sit for 5 minutes in the canner and then lift them out with canning tongs. Place jars on a towel where they can sit undisturbed for 12 hours.
After a few hours, to check for sealing, gently press down in the middle of the lid. If the lid has no give, it’s sealed. If you can press the lid in and it pops a bit, your jars are not sealed. You can reprocess them or store them in the fridge or freezer (only freeze jars that are wide-mouth).
Store in a cool dry place for up to 12 months.
How To Use Home-Canned Pumpkin
I use it in muffins, pumpkin bread, Pumpkin Spice Cookies, and Pumpkin Whipped Cream. In a pinch, you could use it in place of butternut squash in Spicy Vegan Butternut Squash Soup. For another savory option, try Baked Pumpkin Risotto.
If you would like to puree it for pumpkin butter, pie, or other baked goods, drain most of the liquid from the jar and puree. For ease, I just stick my immersion blender directly into the canning jar.
My preference is to do my pumpkin canning in pint-sized jars. The processing time is less compared with quarts, and once drained, a pint jar is about equivalent to a 15 oz can you’d buy in the store.
Canning Pumpkin Pro Tips/Recipe Notes
- I have mentioned this a few times, but you must have a pressure canner to safely can these cubes of pumpkin.
- You may add spices or salt if you’d like, but doing so limits your choices on how to use it after it has been canned.
How to Can Pumpkin
Equipment
Instructions
- Wash and sanitize your jars. You’ll want to keep them warm to avoid having them crack when placed in the canner. You can fill them with hot water, or place them on a tray in the oven at 170 degrees F.
- Wash your lids with hot soapy water and place them in a clean bowl for now.
- Wash and dry the pumpkin and then cut it in half, slightly on one side of the stem. Remove the stem from the section that has it.1 small pie pumpkin
- Remove the innards using a spoon. It's ok to not get all the strings out of it; we'll deal with it later.
- Lay one half of the pumpkin, cavity side down, and slice it like you're slicing a melon. Repeat with the other half.
- Place the slices onto a plate and microwave for 1 minute. This will soften the pumpkin to make the next step easier.
- Using a paring knife, take one of the slices, and cut the rind off of it, and then the inner side as well. Cut into 1-inch chunks. Repeat with the rest of the pumpkin.
- Bring two pots of water to a boil. In one of the pots, add the pumpkin in batches and cook for 2 minutes.10 cups water
- Using a slotted spoon, remove the pumpkin and put them into warm and sanitized canning jars.
- Add 3 quarts of water to your pressure canner and put it on a burner set to high. Make sure there is a canning rack in the bottom of the canner.
- Use boiling water from the second pot and carefully ladle it over the pumpkin chunks, leaving 1 inch of headspace.
- Remove the bubbles from the jar (I use a plastic chopstick).
- Use a wet clean rag and wipe the rim of the jars to make sure it is free of any food.
- Place a clean lid on the jar and tighten the ring to fingertip tight.
- Using canning tongs, gently place the jars in the canner. Lock the lid. Soon, steam will start coming through the vent pipe.
- Allow the steam to pass through for about 10 minutes. Then put the pressure regulator on top. (see photos in post above to see this in action)
- Pumpkin needs to be pressure canned at 11 pounds of pressure for 55 minutes (pints) and 90 minutes (quarts).
- When the dial gauge reaches 11 pounds of pressure, reduce the burner temp to medium, and start your timer. The pressure must stay at 11 or (a little bit) above for the duration of the cook time. You’ll likely need to adjust the temp on the burner a few times depending on your stove.
- When the time is up, remove the canner from the burner and allow it to sit until you hear a distinctive “click” of the air vent dropping.
- Remove the pressure regulator and carefully remove the lid (Pro tip: I always use oven mitts when I take the lid off because the steam is crazy hot).
- Let the jars sit for 5 minutes in the canner and then lift them out with canning tongs. Place on a towel where they can sit undisturbed for 12 hours.
- After a few hours, to check for sealing, gently press down in the middle of the lid. If the lid has no give, it’s sealed. If you can press the lid in and it pops a bit, your jars are not sealed.
Notes
- Store in a cool dark place for up to 12 months.
- Save the seeds for making roasted pumpkin seeds.
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Hi, I followed your recipe to the T, but I have a question about the liquid. I used porcelain doll pumpkin, cut into 1-inch cubes, boiled for 2+ minutes (until soft). I pressure-canned them in quarts for 1 hour 40 minutes at a pressure of 11+ (I live below 1,000 ft but I normally keep it between 12 and 13 so the pressure doesn’t dip below 11). All the cans sealed.
Five days later, I am looking at my jars and there appears to be a cloudiness in the bottom of the liquid. If I shake it up, it all looks normal, like the extra bits of pumpkin floating in water. I’ve done a lot of research to see if this is ok (if it’s just minerals or starch) or if it’s bacteria. Each jar has varying amounts of this cloudiness at the bottom. Can you help? Is it alright to eat it? Nobody seems to know.
Hi Marie, there are a few things to unpack here. First, you processed the pumpkin longer than the recommended amount. At below 1k feet they only need to process for 90 minutes. Second, you processed at a higher PSI than needed. Which isn’t bad, I do that sometimes too when I’m not able to babysit the canner for every second of the processing time.
To me, it does sound like the pumpkin got overprocessed and shed a lot of bits as a result. The cloudiness is very likely just from the overprocessing. If it were me, I’d open a jar and do a sniff test. If it smelled normal, I’d probably cook with it.
If you’re still unsure, most large ag universities have an extension office that you can call or even visit. Most of those offices have a canning expert on staff. In my experience with visiting one to have my pressure canner recalibrated, the visits are free.
Ok thank you so much Sarah! I am relatively new to pressure canning, so this information about what overprocessing can do is super helpful! I’ll do a sniff test and go from there.
Hello Sarah, instead of cooking the pumpkin for 2 minutes in boiling water, can I roast them? I love the flavour of roasted pumpkin and I’d like to preserve that taste. I think that roasting pumpkin cubes, which were previously canned, may not get a caramelized taste. Any advice? Thank you for a great step-by-step tutorial!
Nicole, I looked but couldn’t find any reputable canning sources (like Ball or NCHFP) that included instructions for anything other than boiling. Given that, I don’t feel comfortable saying if it is safe or not.
If you are on Instagram, you may wish to message the Ball Canning team. They’ve been very receptive to my questions over the years.
I hope you answer quickly, lol! My pumpkins are BEGGING to be canned ASAP!
Can I use an Instant Pot as my pressure cooker? If so, what are your directions for doing so? Please & Thank You!!! 🤗
Unfortunately, you cannot. Instant Pots are not safe for canning.
I would freeze your pumpkin instead. Instructions can be found here: https://www.sustainablecooks.com/freezing-pumpkin/
Regarding water bath canning (or not) of any fruit or vegetable: It is not just the density of the foodstuff, but the pH, or measure of acidity. The lower the pH, the more acid a substance is. In order to be safe for water bath canning, the pH must be below 4.6. So a “low acid food actually has a higher pH than a high acid food. Even with added acid, it is virtually impossible to guarantee a uniform pH throughout a dense substance such as pumpkin or winter squash puree or mashed potatoes, so NO WATER BATH CANNING! Additionally, the density of purees and the “free water availability” in such foodstuffs can vary throughout the preparation, making it difficult to obtain the uniformly high temperatures and pressures necessary to guarantee killing of all bacteria and spores in each jar. Hence NO PRESSURE CANNING of low acid purees. Stick with 1″ cubes and pressure can.
I canned (pressure canned) quart jars of pumpkin cubes, they all turned (including the water) a burnt orange/brown color, is that normal?
Julie, did you precook the cubes before canning them or did you raw pack them?
Do you not need a salt or citric acid to preserve the fruit? What if I don’t have a pressure canner?
You do not need those preservatives to pressure can pumpkin.
You cannot safely water bath can pumpkin. Let me copy and paste a portion of the post here with more details:
CAN YOU CAN PUMPKIN IN A WATER BATH?
No. The density of pumpkin puree is too thick for the home canner to safely heat to the core and kill botulism spores. Yikes, just don’t go messing around with that.
Nor are you able to safely can pumpkin puree in a water bath or pressure canner. I’m sorry, these things are just not safe for the home canner.
If you’re not down with canning pumpkin cubes or don’t have a pressure canner, you can totally freeze pumpkin puree if you’d like. Make sure you use wide-mouth jars and don’t fill them too full.
I’m totally out of freezer space. So…. I am going to can up 1 of my 75 pound pumpkins in quarts it will take several canners to get this accomplished but if I have any space left in the canner, I’ll can some pinto beans or potatoes. They take the same time in the same pressure.
I’m impressed you still have any jars at this point! I’m out of both freezer space and jars. LOL 🙂
When you use the canned pumpkin, do you puree it with the water in the jar, or drain it first? I assume the canned pumpkin is drained first, but I wanted to clarify.
Thanks!
It depends on how thick you need the puree to be. I usually drain 95% of the water and then blend.
Our garden had a pumpkin surplus this year – more than 60 pounds of various pie varieties! This will be a great way to save room in our freezer and keep our bounty throughout the winter.
Oh my gosh Tammy that is a lot of pumpkins!!!
I like to can leftover soups rather than trying to finish them off and no one wants that soup for a long time. I like the convenience of instant supper too. Can I can leftover pumpkin soup? I don’t add the cream until I serve so it would be plain pure pumpkin soup. I do can my own pumpkin in cubes.
Cindy, would you be able to send me the ingredients list (is it really *just* pumpkin?)? I’d love to see it before advising you. Safety is my primary goal!