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Food preservation is kind of my thing. I love trying new (approved) recipes, and I love trying new things I haven’t done before. In the past 9 months, I’ve added an All-American 21.5-Quart Pressure Canner and an Excalibur 9-Tray Food Dehydrator to my kitchen in much-needed replacement of older versions.
I was given an Anova Sous Vide Immersion Circulator for Christmas last year, so that was also added to my kitchen collection. It helped me win my first purple ribbon at our county fair this year, for my low-temperature pasteurized garlic dill pickles. I won a physical ribbon and $4 cash, but it totally made my year! I have been trying for four years to get that dang purple ribbon.
Anyway, I know not everyone has the space, time, or desire for home canning. So, for this post, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite ways to preserve food that DON’T involve actually canning it. So, when your neighbor brings you a bag of cucumbers or a box of tomatoes, now you’ll have some ideas.
My Top 5 Favorite Quick Food Preservation Ideas (Without Canning!)
A Very Large Bowl of Pickles for a Potluck
The recipe I use is from Food in Jars, but I omit the cilantro and mint and use dill instead. These are a great way to use surplus cucumbers, and they stay good in the refrigerator for a month or two!
Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce
The recipe I use is from Feasting at Home. This is amazing! We always make and can a large batch of spaghetti sauce, but this is perfect for a small batch to freeze, and we save it for extra special meals.
Green Tomato Bacon Jam
This recipe is from Farm Fresh Feasts. Guys, this stuff is for real the most amazing thing ever. Last year I made and froze 2 whole gallon bags of it (one with bacon, one without!) It’s great on pork chops, hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and more. It is perfect for those poor tomatoes that don’t get to finish growing before our Midwest temperatures freeze in the fall.
Eggplant Parmesan
We like to take our extra eggplant from the garden and make a huge batch of Eggplant Parmesan. We bake it off, and then package and freeze it into “dinner-for-two” serving sizes to enjoy throughout the year. This is SUCH a timesaver and an awesome treat when eggplant isn’t in season. We fry our slices on an electric griddle, it makes the process go just a bit quicker because you can do so many slices per batch.
Refrigerator/Freezer Jam
You really could just use any jam recipe for this, and instead of hot water bathing it, freeze it. Here’s a quick recipe for reference though. I recommend freezing in BPA-free plastic containers with airtight lids (versus glass jars.) Jam with more sugar can be in the refrigerator for longer, but the safest option is to just freeze it. Jam actually never really freezes solid, so it’s easy to snag some out when you want to use.
Other Ideas for Quick Food Preservation
There are of course lots of other things you can do, too. We make a lot of stir fry dinners and Skinnytaste bagel dough pizza crusts loaded with vegetables in the summer, too. Cucumber salad, fresh salsa to just make and eat, spinach dip using Swiss chard and/or other greens, and baba ganoush are some of our other favorites.
Whatever you do, the main thing is to enjoy the fresh garden vegetables while they are here!
Want more information? Check out my other posts about food preservation!
