Canning Ground Beef

One of our local grocery stores ran a sale this week on ground round.  Ground round happens to be an ideal ground meat for canning, so I took advantage of the sale and bought 12 packages....

Ground beef can be canned in many different ways.  I make and can meatloaf, meatballs, taco meat....but today I was canning just plain ground beef with no salt or seasonings.  When I open the jar I can use it for any dish that calls for ground beef and season it accordingly at that time.  The only other ingredient is water.

First I thoroughly brown and crumble the beef.....

Browned and crumbly is exactly how it will come out of the jar after processing....perfect for sprinkling on pizza, making burritos, tacos.....
Next you spoon the drained ground beef into jars.  I am using wide mouth pint jars for this, each one holds just over a pound of meat, perfect for a meal.

Use a spoon to pack them really tightly, the meat will shrink a bit when canning and you want to have really packed, full jars.

Then top the jars with boiling water, cap and seal the jars, and process in a pressure canner for 70 minutes according to your altitude instructions....Once processed I have 15 jars of ground beef on my shelf waiting...

Canned meat gives you a fast start to a quick meal.  Next week I'm planning to start "Turn it over Tuesdays".  On Tuesdays I will cook our main meal from the pantry only, to help explain the importance of keeping your pantry foods rotated.  We do this once a week, and I thought it might be interesting if I made it a weekly post.