Shelling peas
Your Practical Guide To Self Reliant Living
Canning peas is a simple way to preserve peas on the pantry shelf fresh from the garden. They’re much better than store-bought tinned peas, and canning soon after harvest seals in their natural sweetness.
Canned peas are a particular favorite of mine, mainly because they were such a treat when I was a kid. Yes, you read that right, canned peas were a treat in my childhood.
The only vegetables we ever had were canned, and more often than not it was canned corn (which isn’t even strictly a vegetable, but that’s another story).
Every once in a while, that canned corn would get switched out with canned peas and I’d be in heaven. If it was someone’s birthday and my parents were feeling flush, they might even spring for canned asparagus, but don’t get greedy.
Simple pleasures to be sure, but even as an adult I remember canned peas as a childhood treat, back when money was so tight that an extra nickel for peas in a can seemed like an extravagance.
Now that I’m grown, we have huge sprawling gardens, and the only canned foods my kids eat are those that I’ve put up in mason jars.
We eat plenty of fresh veggies, and in the summer months, we all work together canning corn. I even put up a few jars of pressure canned asparagus every year, but now home-canned peas are an even bigger treat in my book than canned asparagus (which is relatively quick and simple to can at home).
Canning peas takes work, but more importantly, it takes time.
It’s not hard work, of course, and it’s honestly one of the best ways to spend your time in the spring and early summer months. Time spent sitting in the spring breeze shelling peas while my kids play in the yard, looking over my shoulder at all the other things I “should” be doing…
Instead, I’m here with my feet up slowly shelling peas, smelling the lilacs, and listening to the sounds of the littles giggling as they spray each other with the hose.
Canning peas at home starts with shelling peas. Be sure you’re growing a shelling pea variety, which is different than snap or snow peas.
Both snap and snow peas are delicious, but they don’t work for pressure canning.
If you have those and are determined to preserve them, try making lacto-fermented snow peas or pickled snap peas. That will preserve them, but still, their best use is eaten fresh and sweet out of hand in the garden.
If you have a lot of peas, you can invest in a pea sheller which will greatly speed up the process, or you can just take your time and shell them slowly by hand in a comfy chair (or porch rocker if you really want to go old school).
I snap off the ends with my fingers, pulling up towards the seam, and then continue to pull and it “unzips” the string on the pea shell. From there they just fold open and you can pop the peas out.
How many peas do you need for a batch? That depends a bit on how mature your peas are, but assuming they’re perfectly ripe, it takes roughly:
If measuring the peas once shelled, it takes about 9 ounces of shelled peas for a narrow mouth pint jar (around 10 ounces per wide mouth, as they pack better). For a quart, double it.
I tend to use narrow mouth pint jars for two reasons:
Quarts honestly would be the most economical in terms of canning time, since the canner holds 14 quarts (which works out to 28 pints in volume), but a pint serving size works out better for my family. Choose what works best for your family, knowing that the canning times for both pints and quarts are the same.
You have a number of options when canning peas, but know that the must be pressure canned. Peas are a low acid vegetable and they’re not safe for water bath canning. If you’re not familiar with pressure canning, please read my beginner’s guide to pressure canning before getting started.
That said, you do get to choose your jar size and pack type.
Jar Size ~ When canning other vegetables, a larger jar size means a longer canning time (and potentially mushy vegetables), but with peas, the canning time is the same for pints and quarts. Choose what fits your family best.
Pack Type ~ For pack type, you can do either raw pack or hot pack. Usually, hot packs result in better quality finished products. When canning peaches, for example, a hot pack results in a dramatically better finished product, even though it is a pain to pack fruit hot.
For peas, I’ve tried both, and honestly, I can’t tell the difference between hot pack and raw pack peas. They both fill out the jar nicely and the texture and flavor is identical.
I’d suggest raw packing since it’s so much easier, but I’ll walk you through both methods.
Blanch the peas in boiling water for 2 minutes and then remove with a slotted spoon to pack into prepared canning jars. Top with either freshwater from a kettle or the blanching water.
Leave 1-inch headspace and seal with 2 part lids. Load the jars into a pressure canner that’s been preheated to just simmering (around 180 degrees F).
Hot packing peas for pressure canning
Pack peas directly into canning jars and top with boiling water from a kettle. Leave 1-inch headspace and seal with 2 part lids.
Load the jars into a pressure canner that’s been filled with very hot water, and just barely heated (around 140 degrees F). Note that’s much cooler than a hot pack to prevent the jars from cracking due to thermal shock.
The canner will take much longer to come up to temperature.
Raw packing peas for pressure canning
With either a hot or raw pack, seal the pressure canner lid on the canner after the last jar is loaded, but don’t start bringing it up to pressure. Turn the heat up to high and allow the steam to vent for 10 minutes before adding the canning weight and bringing the canner up to pressure.
Begin timing when the canner is at pressure. The time and pressure are determined by the type of canner and your altitude, see the table below:
Once the canning time is complete, allow the canner to come to room temperature before opening. Remove jars and check seals.
Store any unsealed jars in the refrigerator for immediate use. Properly canned and sealed jars will keep on the pantry shelf without losing quality for 12 to 18 months.
Looking for other ways to preserve peas?
Pressure canning peas is makes them shelf stable for year round enjoyment right out of the jar.
Peas are a low acid vegetable and must be pressure canned. Do not attempt to water bath can peas, as it’s not safe. If you’re not familiar with pressure canning, please read my beginner’s guide to pressure canning before beginning.
The canning time is always 40 minutes, regardless of altitude or jar size. Do not can peas in jars larger than quarts.
For a dial gauge pressure canner, the pressure is as follows:
For a weighted gauge pressure canner, the pressure is as follows:
If measuring the peas once shelled, it takes about 9 ounces of shelled peas for a narrow mouth pint jar (around 10 ounces per wide mouth, as they pack better). For a quart, double it.
Both raw pack and hot pack are acceptable canning methods. I’ve tried both, and you cannot tell the difference in a blind taste test of the finished product. Raw packing is easier, so I’ve given those instructions above. If you prefer to hot pack for whatever reason, blanch the peas for 2 minutes in boiling water before packing into canning jars and topping with boiling water. Either the blanching water or fresh boiling water from a kettle works fine.
Prepare the canner by preheating to just barely simmering (around 180 degrees), instead of the cooler temperature that’s used for raw pack (around 140 degrees, or very hot to the touch, but no where near boiling). This temperature difference helps more closely match the temperature of the jars going into the canner and reduces the risk of thermal shock to the jars.
Looking for more ways to can vegetables and other garden produce?
Stock your pantry with these pressure canning recipes:
Yes home canned foods are a labor of love! They really don’t save you much if any money and surely doesn’t save any time. But, when you open a jar of what you produced from the fall in the middle of winter there is just some sort of satisfaction with looking at it and the taste and happiness that it brings! Makes it all worth while!
God Bless and stay safe…
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I’m an off-grid homesteader in rural Vermont and the author of Practical Self Reliance, a blog that helps people find practical ways to become more self-reliant. Read More…
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Shelling peas
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