Use this list of essential food preserving ingredients to make your canning & dehydrating process faster and more efficient. If you have the ingredients ready to go in your pantry then you can get straight to preserving food right when it needs to be or when it is convenient for you.
This list of ingredients is simple. I have found these to be the most common in many of the preserving cookbooks I look to for inspiration and guidance.
Sometimes it can even be hard to find the ingredients we need as others tend to be preserving food from the garden at the same time. Keeping these essential preserving ingredients on hand saves you the headache of trying to find them.
These Ingredients Work For:
- Canning
- Dehydrating
- Fermenting
Best & Most Versatile Spices To Have On Hand:
Generally fresh ingredients go into canning or fermenting, whereas dried ingredients are great for flavouring anything you like to dehydrate.
- Garlic Cloves (Canning, Fermenting)
- Garlic Powder (Dehydrating)
- Olive / Avocado Oil (Dehydrating)
- White Vinegar 5-7% (Canning)
- Balsamic Vinegar (Dehydrating)
- Mustard Seeds (Canning)
- Dill Seeds (Canning)
- Fresh Dill (Canning)
- Red Chilli Flakes (Canning, Dehydrating, Fermenting)
- Fresh peppers with a variety of spice levels (Canning, Fermenting)
- Pickling Salt (Canning, Fermenting)
- Peppercorns (Canning)
- Fresh Ground Pepper (Dehydrating)
As you can see there are a couple different kinds of the same thing depending which methods you like the best but they are all quite simple.
Here is a few of the most common and easiest vegetables for dehydrating in to snacks.
My Go To Garlic Dill Canning (Pickling) Recipe
I don’t measure so this is just an approximate.
- Garlic Cloves – whole. approx. 4-6 per jar (I really like garlic)
- Mustard Seeds – 1/2 tsp
- Peppercorn – 1/2 to 1 tbsp
- Fresh Dill – 1 – 2 stems (fuzzy parts only with flowers)
- Hot Peppers – 1 Thai chilli pepper per jar max (spicy lovers)! or half jalapeno for milder spice. Less is definitely more.
- Top with the standard (1 cup vinegar, 1 cup water, 1 tsp salt brine ratio)
Favourite Dehydrated Vegetables
You can dehydrate using either a dehydrator or your oven on it’s lowest setting.
Either leave them plain so you can add then to soups, stews or any recipe later on, or you can oil and flavour them to make them into chips.
- Zucchini
- Summer Squash
- Carrots
- Beets
- Kale
- Tomatoes
Using a mandolin slicer is a good idea for making evenly sliced chips from root vegetables.
Favourite Spice Combinations For Vegetable Chips:
Evenly coat lightly with oil of your choosing. I prefer olive or avocado oil before adding your spices.
- Salt & Balsamic Vinegar
- Lemon & Fresh Ground Pepper
- Tamari & Garlic Powder
- Garlic Powder & Nutritional Yeast (vegan cheese flavour)
- Lemon Juice & Dill
- Chilli Powder, Turmeric & Garlic Powder
There really is no end to the options you can create with this. Get creative!
