How Long is the Shelf Life of Home-Canned Food?

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This is a pretty frequent and popular question, especially amongst the newb canners, so here you go with a long form answer past my “’til you eat it” phrase I always use and WHY I say that. First, we need to understand why most lid manufacturing companies give an 18 month seal and/or freshness guarantee. Does that mean the food is instantaneously poison the minute it hits 18 months old?! NO.

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And here’s why.

What the lid companies are doing are giving you the date you really *should* be consuming canned foods by due to freshness, palatability, and nutritional value. They just want you to have the best quality of food on your shelves. Somewhere around the 18 month to 2 year mark of storage, the food does begin to change. Slowly. The chemical reactions begin to degrade the food and can cause a change in appearance in the jars (like the tops of your tomato sauces turning brown) or even the texture. While sometimes the food changes a little bit, I haven’t found anything crazy noticeable in many of the “normal” things that are approved to be canned by the National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP). I will mention that Americans are crazy obsessed with having an expiration date or use-by dates on literally everything and that’s just wild work. Salt and sugar expire?! MUSTARD?! Vinegar?! What on God’s green Earth guys. STOP NEEDING EVERYTHING TO EXPIRE!

Home-canned foods can last as long as you need them to, and just because they hit the magical 18 month mark DOES NOT mean you need to toss them. Stahhhhp. It actually means that maybe you could prioritize using it soon-ish, but also, not that serious. As long as the seal is intact and the food looks and smells normal, the food is safe to consume. If you’re concerned the canning process may not have been correct or you just need some peace of mind, go ahead and boil it for 5-10 minutes. Fine to eat then. But as always, when in doubt, throw it out, BUT please not just because of the age of the jar.

I once opened a jar of green beans canned in 1976 with a friend and ate them and they surprised me. They didn’t taste almost 50 years old!! I also have jars of food from 2015 which definitely isn’t as old but I’m still working through it. Home canned foods, and even store bought canned foods, have a long shelf life… much longer than they tell us. Use your noggin and if there’s any signs of spoilage, don’t eat it. This goes for both home canned and commercial, but if there’s any bulging lid or bulging cans, rust, or a frothy effervescence when you open it, these are all a sign of spoilage and you should not eat it. Also, smell it. Does it smell normal? I’m not going to say check to see if it smells good, because if you’ve opened a jar of chicken, that smells right fart-y and I wouldn’t call that a good smell.

Tests to Tell If Your Jar Is Okay to Use

Hold jar at eye level and note any active bubbling without agitating the jar. If there is, toss.
Look at the food and the color. Does it look normal, is it separating, can you see mold or active signs of rotting or some weird color changes in the jar? If so, toss.
Is the lid sealed? Frequently checked your canned goods for failed seals by tapping the lids and/or lifting the jars by the lid. If the vacuum seal has failed, the lid will come off without much effort. Lids that aren’t sealed or are false sealed will have a dull thud sound as opposed to the sharp ping noise of a well sealed jar. If the jar isn’t sealed, toss.
When you open the jar listen for the schwooooop whooshing sound of the vacuum seal being disrupted. If you feel the seal wasn’t very strong, toss the food.
Does the food smell normal or does it smell off? If it has an off smell, toss.
Any surface mold? Mold is normally green or blue in the jars. Any pimple-y looking white dots, especially on meat are usually just fat that always floats on top. If you see mold, toss it.

If all these things check out, your food should be safe to eat. If you question your processing methods or times, the best way to negate any risk is to simply heat the food to a boil and let it cook for 5-10 minutes prior to consuming.

What can you do?

When home canning, follow the “first in, first out” rule with your jars. Find an organization method that helps you keep organized so you’re using the oldest food first and not missing it because you have it smashed in a dark corner… ahem… talking to myself here. By doing this and not canning more food than 2 years worth, you can easily rotate out and restock as needed over a 2 year period pretty easily while maintaining high food quality and nutrition.

I have also found that high-acid foods like tomato sauce and salsa tend to discolor at the tops faster than the low acid foods for whatever reason. Home canned meats seem to keep for a really long time and I’ve seen no noticeable changes or effects with age. I usually process those in a pressure canner as is recommended. Usually. LOL

Storage is super important for the longevity of your home canned foods. Storing food in direct sunlight is not a good thing and it is going to expedite the degradation process much faster than in a dark place. Cool is better than super hot, too. Anything around room temperature, or 50-70 degrees fahrenheit, is optimal storage conditions for your canned goodies. A cool dark basement isa great place to get the longest storage life out of your food. Warmer temperatures do lend to faster degradation than cooler storage, but you work with what you have and if all you have is a warm place, it’ll be better than not having it at all. It is also very important to have your jars in a dry place. Moist or wet conditions can lead to rusting on your lids which can cause seal failure.

You should also be removing the rings after canning and washing your jars prior to storage. By removing the rings, you allow the lid to pop just in case of the food turning instead of the jar exploding from the by products of growth of spoilage bacteria. It’s good practice and allows for an easy and obvious visual representation that your food has spoiled. And if you can enough, it’s inevitable. You will have the occasional jar seal fail and begin to rot in storage. It happens. And if you see someone claiming it doesn’t, they don’t can enough or they’re getting paid by the lid company for an advertisement. Washing your jars is also super important because you don’t want any food bits left on the outside surface of your jars that have siphoned or whatnot as they can mold and attract pests.

But what about those weird things you sometimes can….

Yeah.. those things that really rile up the canning police. Things like dairy, cheese, or cheesecake in a jar. I have personally found that most canned dairy needs to be used within 6-12 months for best taste. Milk tends to get a little odd after the 1 year mark in flavor, but keeps just fine and is perfect to use in soap or baking. It’s just not the greatest for drinking. The cheesecake in a jars really should be eaten in about 3-6 months, mostly because the graham cracker crust gets really gooey otherwise and it’s not the greatest. Those are a shorter shelf life type of thing which isn’t hard to make happen. LOL Things like my canned mac and cheese and nacho cheese sauce I make I do try and use within 6 months. I don’t can it a ton or make enormous batches which makes it easy to use.

Anything pickled, with high vinegar content, or jams/jellies will last until the Lord comes again. The have the longest shelf life. Things with LOADS of sugar are basically preserved indefinitely so homemade jams will last FOR-EV-ER. I generally make a gargantuan batch of 1-2 types of jams each year and have minimum 5 years worth of that jam. Sugar substitutes (like granular splenda) on the other hand? I’ve no idea on those as I’ve never worked with them or used them.