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Canned Beets

A preserved beet dish made by boiling, skinning, and canning with salt and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Canned Beets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash small beets, leaving on roots and 2 inches of stem.

  2. Boil beets for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain and cool the beets.

  4. Remove skins, roots, and tops from the beets.

Pack and steam

  1. Pack beets in sterile jars.

  2. Add salt and vinegar to each quart jar.

  3. Fill jars with boiled and cooled water.

  4. Cover jars and steam for 1 to 1½ hours.

  5. Fill and seal the jars.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Beets
Provide the main vegetable, with natural sweetness and colour that deepen as they cook.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, giving a sharp tang that balances the beets' sweetness.

The step that matters

Steaming the sealed jars for 1 to 1½ hours. The jars must be heated long enough and evenly to destroy microbes that could spoil the beets. Stopping early leaves the contents at risk, so the full time matters.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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