Cold winter days always make me want a nice bowl of homemade soup. This is the time of year we often get calls about canning homemade soup. Sometimes a caller will have made a big batch of soup and they ask about preserving it. As with other canning recipes, it is important to use tested recipes when canning soup. The Ball Blue Book has the only tested recipe for tomato soup that we are aware of at AnswerLine. But if you just want to can your own vegetable soup, the National Center for Home Food Preservation does have a tested recipe that will allow you to can your own recipe. Due to safety concerns, you may not process soup with milk, cream, flour, rice, noodles, or other pasta. You may add some meat or poultry as long as all the fat has been removed. If you want to use dried beans or peas, they must be rehydrated before canning.
If you choose to can your own recipe, remember to add all the ingredients and cover with enough hot water or cooking broth to cover the meat and vegetable mixture. You will need to bring the ingredients to a boil and continue to boil for 5 minutes. Then you will be able to load the jars. Remember when filling the jars that the solids (meat, poultry and or vegetables) must not fill more than half of the jar. Cover the rest with cooking liquid; leaving a headspace of 1-inch. This product MUST be processed in a pressure canner for 60 minutes in a pint jar or 75 minutes in a quart jar.
Some callers are frustrated because their favorite soup recipes contain ingredients that are not considered safe in canning recipes. It is important to remember that safety is our first concern. However, there are some ways to preserve food and still enjoy that favorite recipe.
Callers can always freeze soup; individual frozen portions are nearly as convenient as a “can of soup”. Callers also have the option of canning a portion of the soup recipe and then adding items like cream or noodles when they prepare the soup. Another option is to can ingredients and prepare the soup from several jars of home preserved food. Home canned green beans, carrots, corn, chicken or beef, and tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes could be combined with some homemade noodles for a great hearty soup meal.
Remember that even during the coldest days of winter, if you love home food preservation, there are lots of things that you can preserve.
I am confused on the NCHFP site about soup. I understand the process in general but when it comes to adding tomatoes into the soup I want to pressure can, I am confused about adding acid. It also says to “Combine solid ingredients with meat broth, tomatoes, or water to cover. Boil 5 minutes.” So does this mean I don’t need to add water? I can just add tomatoes prepared with the acid if I want that many? And then it boils down creating the liquid before canning?
Without knowing more about what you are attempting to do, I am not sure I can answer your question. Instead, I am providing some additional credible resources which I hope will answer your question as you need. The USDA does not have an exact science recipe for canning soup.
https://www.healthycanning.com/usdas-your-choice-soup-recipe
https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-5340
https://extension.psu.edu/canning-soup-safely