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If there was one thing I love to can and could eat every single day, it would be good old fashioned pickled beets. I’ve loved them as long as I can remember. I was weird enough as a kid that my Papa would make me pickled beets and eggs for my birthday. They were the BEST!! He’s in heaven now, so I’m here carrying on his tradition and loving pickled beets & beet pickled eggs.  

A lot of folks scrunch their noses at pickled beets, but I say, MORE FOR ME!  This canning recipe is the perfect combination of sweet and sour with the warm spices and earthy beets to make the best quality pickled beets recipe you’ve ever had.  I enjoy them straight out of the jar with a fork.  I can put away a whole pint for a quick lunch, shamelessly.  If you do enjoy pickled beets, you’ll have to try your hand at fermenting beets in the future!

I’ve worked on tweaking this recipe to perfect to my taste and I’ve got it down now. I messed with using ground spices instead of whole because I never have cinnamon sticks or whole cloves on hand when I need them.  She’s a little disorganized and impulsive, ok?!  I have flaws!  I will add both measures in the recipe for you, in case you’re a little bit like me.

Using the whole spices allows you to strain the spices out, but sometimes I kinda like the ground ones because the pickled beets taste spicier, and I can bypass the simmering step entirely to flavor the pickling liquid with the whole spices.  This is good for a very impatient canner!  I normally make a big batch of the pickling liquid and can the excess for later or keep it in the fridge.  Make one big mess, save time down the road.  My brand!

Growing Beets

I choose to grow my own beets because they’re extremely easy, and you get a ton of plants from a little packet of seeds! My favorite varieties to grow are (I’ll also link where I snag the seeds if I can):

• Detroit Red
• Chioggia
• Cylindra

My Method of Peeling Beets for Canning

First and foremost, you need to par cook your beets to make it much easier to peel them. My favorite way is to cut the green beet tops off, wash the beets realllllly good, and toss them in my instant pot pressure cooker for about 20 minutes, depending on the size of your beets. 20 minutes does some medium sized beets, which are about tennis ball sized. Bigger will need 25-30 minutes.  Smaller just depends on the size and takes some trial and error.  

The little baby beets take like 5 minutes and I leave those whole when canning.  They’re super cute.  Let the pressure cooker naturally depressurize, then remove the beets and cool just enough to be able to handle them.  

For the love of all things holy, do not use a wood cutting board to sit them on to slice and please wear gloves or you will look insane for DAYS if not WEEKS.  Ole purple hands over there musta been cannin’ da beets *snickers*.  

The skins slip right off by wiping the beet with your fingers.  Any blemishes or scars on the beet usually need to be sliced off, or gouged out with your thumb if you’re a savage (looking at myself), since they don’t peel easily there and can harbor dirt and bacteria.  I don’t use a cutting board and instead just slice the beets in my hand so I don’t stain anything else and I don’t have any plastic boards.  It works just fine.  

Other folks just boil beets and that works too.  I just make an unholy mess doing that (meaning I cook over the beets and everything burns and it’s a disaster because beets release sugar and sugar burns and smokes and sets off fire alarms) so it doesn’t work very well for me. LOL Growing up that’s how we did it and my mom would pack this giant aluminum stock pot full of them that we got from Ollie’s and it would take like 3 hours to even simmer. Wild times :)

 Equipment You Will Need:

• Steam canner
• Water Bath Canner
• large saucepan
• Pint canning jars
• Lids & screw bands
• Ladle
• Jar funnel
• Jar lifter

Ingredients:

• 12 pounds fresh beets
• 5 1/3 cups vinegar (white vinegar or apple cider vinegar or a mixture of both)
• 4 cups sugar or less, your preference
• 4 cups water
• 2 Tbs ground cinnamon (or 2-3 cinnamon sticks)
• 1 1/2 Tbs salt
• 1 tsp ground cloves (or 1 Tbs whole cloves)

Let’s can some pickled beets!

Step 1:  Prep the beets

The amount of beets you have does not matter, as long as it is 12 pounds and under, you should have enough pickling brine.  If you have more, increase the brine amount accordingly in the next steps.

Wash and scrub beets really well.  Trim the beets green tops off.  Blanch or partially cook using your preferred method, remove skins, cut off tops, trim the bottom of the tap root, and slice.  Set aside the sliced beets in a bowl, covered to keep warm.

Step 2:  Make the Pickling Liquid

Add the remaining ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar.  If using whole spices, put them in a tea ball or a sachet if you would like to make it easier to remove them before canning.  Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and allow to simmer about 20 minutes.

If you are using ground spices, you can skip the simmering step and just heat the vinegar mixture to dissolve the sugar.

Step 3:  Fill the Jars

Pack beets into pint jars to 1/2 inch headspace.  Tap the jar bottom on the heel of your hand to settle the beets to be able to add more.  Don’t pack super tightly, but gently using the method I gave you.

Ladle the hot liquid over top to 1/2″ headspace, remove air bubbles, and add more pickling brine if needed to maintain headspace.  Any leftover pickling liquid and be refrigerated for the next batch (it’ll last a long time in the refrigerator) or canned along with the pickled beets to be shelf stable.

Wipe the rims of the jars, center lids on the jars and secure with bands.  Process in a steam canner or a boiling water bath at a full rolling boil for 30 minutes, adjusting for altitude as needed.  This recipe is safe for water bath canning due to the acidity level.  Anything pickled is well below a pH level of 4.6, which is safe for water bath canning.

Step 4: Storage

Once the processing time has ended, remove jars to cool and place on a heatproof surface covered with a towel.  Allow to cool undisturbed for 12-18 hours before removing bands, testing seals, washing jars, and labeling.  Store in a cool, dark place on the shelf away from direct sunlight.  The canning process renders these beets shelf stable as long as the jars seal.

Notes

• if you’re not into canning pickled beets, you can absolutely follow all the steps and skip the canning.  Let the beets and brine cool down a bit and then place in the fridge to make easy refrigerator pickled beets instead.  Let them sit in the fridge for about 6 weeks to fully pickle and flavor.
• allow canned pickled beets to pickle on the shelf for 6 weeks before opening for best flavor.  The longer they sit, the better they get!

Happy canning!

How to Make Easy Home Canned Spiced Pickled Beets

Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 45 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Canning Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 8 pints

Author: Ruby – Red Feather Farm

Equipment

• steam canner
• Large saucepan
• pint canning jars
• Lids & Bands
• ladle
• jar funnel
• jar lifter
• Water bath canning pot

Ingredients

• 12 pounds fresh beets
• 5 1/3 cups vinegar white vinegar or apple cider vinegar or a mixture of both
• 4 cups sugar or less your preference
• 4 cups water
• 2 Tbs ground cinnamon or 2-3 cinnamon sticks
• 1 1/2 Tbs salt
• 1 tsp ground cloves or 1 Tbs whole cloves

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

• Trim greens and wash beets well. Blanch using preferred method, remove skins, and slice. Set aside covered to keep warm.
• Add all remaining ingredients to a stock pot and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.
• If using whole spices, allow pickling liquid to boil 15-20 minutes. You can skip this step if using ground spices.
• Add warm beets to prepared pint jars and pour hot liquid over to 1/2" headspace. Debubble if needed and add more liquid to maintain headspace.
• Wipe rims and add lids and bands.
• Process jars in a steam canner for 30 minutes, adjusting time for altitude if needed.

Notes

Allow canned pickled beets to sit on the shelf for about 6 weeks to fully pickle and flavor before enjoying.  But, as always, the longer they sit, the better they get!

Check out my other pickling recipes here just in time for the garden to start booming!