6 Food Preservation Books: Proven Methods for Homesteaders to Enjoy Their Harvest All Year
Preserving food for winter is an important part of growing your own. It’s such a joy to still be able to use your homegrown produce in the dead of winter when the ground is covered in snow! This list includes 6 of my favorite food preservation books for homesteaders!
These books cover everything from basic canning to fermenting, to keeping food cool in a root cellar, to preserving with salt and vinegar!
The techniques covered in these food preservation books are how our family eats seasonally from our homestead. Living in a short-season climate, food preservation is an absolute must if we want to eat our homegrown food more than a few months out of the ear!
6 Food Preservation Books for Homesteaders
1. Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning
2. A Cabin Full of Food
3. Joy of Pickling
4. Root Cellaring
5. Pickling Everything
6. Can It and Ferment It
Personally, I use a wide variety of food preservation techniques. I can, ferment, dehydrate, freeze, and more, depending on what type of food I want to preserve. These food preservation books explain how to preserve food with each of these methods.
~I like to dehydrate veggies for winter soups and stews. The dehydrated vegetables don’t take much space to store and last a long time. You can find our tutorial on dehydrating without a dehydrator here!
~For fresh eating, I store some veggies in an extra refrigerator and others out in the garden. In the fall, we tuck some cabbages in the crawl space under our house, where they last into the winter.
~I store fermented veggies, wine, and larded eggs in an unheated basement. I’m also experimenting with curing meats this way!
~For most of our meat, I pressure can the stew meat, burger, and roast, keeping some steaks and nicer cuts in the freezer.
I’m always experimenting with new (or more commonly old!) methods of food preservation.
Regardless of where you live and what you can do on your property, you’ll be sure to find some methods that work for you in these six food preservation books!
#1 Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning
Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning is a collection of traditional food preservation techniques using salt, oil, sugar, alcohol, vinegar, dehydrating, cold storage and lacto-fermentation.
What really makes this book unique is that it is a collection of food preservation methods from hundreds of different contributors, not just one author. Many of these traditional food preservation methods conserve, or even increase the nutrient value of the foods you eat, unlike canning which diminishes nutrients!
I found so many interesting recipes in here that I hope to try soon. Just a few include filling whole cabbages with salt, preserving cheese in oil and spices, and homemade vegetable bouillon powder.
#2 A Cabin Full of Food
I absolutely loved all the unique food preservation methods in this large book. The author lives without refrigeration.
She shares both recipes and information on how she preserves her food. Most exciting to me, was her inclusion of a variety of homemade cheeses and historic meat preservation methods that don’t require freezing or pressure canning. Her recipe for bacon uses an old fashioned cold smoking technique that preserved meat for many months when it was kept in a cool place.
I first borrowed this one from the library and immediately decided to purchase a copy for my own shelf!
PS: An additional resource for living without refrigeration is An American Homestead’s Youtube channel. They have some great recipes!
#3 Joy of Pickling
#3 on my list of best food preservation books is Joy of Pickling. It used to be when I thought of “pickles”, pickled cucumbers came to mind. The Joy of Pickling includes more than 200 recipes for pickling every kind of food you can imagine.
The book has chapters on fermented refrigerator pickles, canned pickles and freezer pickles. It shows you how to pickle everything from cauliflower, to chutney, to walnuts, to eggs and meats.
Definitely a must-have for any family who loves pickles!
#4 Root Cellaring
I first stole this food preservation book from my mother’s shelf, then borrowed a copy from the local library. I probably should just purchase my own!
This complete guide to root cellaring includes everything from storing food in a root cellar, to building one, to recipes using your stored food.
The first part of the book includes storage methods, varieties to grow, and storage times for a variety of foods.
The middle of the book has root cellar plans for everyone. Some of the included plans are for outdoor storage methods such as clamps, trenches, a hay bale fortress and a buried refrigerator “cellar”. There are also instructions on making a cold cellar in your existing basement, or for digging an entirely new one!
I use some of the techniques mentioned here now, but am really looking forward to owning my own property some day so I can build a serious root cellar!
#5 Pickling Everything
Next on my list of food preservation books is Pickling Everything.
This pickling book has so many fun recipes! Some include vinegar, while others are lacto-fermented and loaded with health benefits.
I tried out many of these recipes in my kitchen this past summer. Really a great book to have in your homestead kitchen!
#6 Can it and Ferment It
Another book I originally “borrowed” from my mother’s shelf. I found lots of fun small-batch recipes in this food preservation book, and have been experimenting with many of them.
I really like how it includes a combination of fermenting and actual canning, since I do both in my homestead kitchen!
Do you have any favorite food preservation books not mentioned here? Please share them in the comments!
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