Name: Canning Peaches
Prep time: 2 h
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 3 h 20 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 16 lbs peaches; 6 cups sugar; citric acid; 12 pint jars (or equivalent); cinnamon; cloves

Pin2

2 Shares

SKIP TO RECIPE

How to can peaches: fill jars with sunshine, add syrup, and guard your spoon. This guide on how to can peaches will walk you through every step — no experience required but it does come with a warning.

A small mason jar of canned peaches, with a peach slice resting on a spoon that's resting on the top of the mason jar.

Peaches are known seducers. They smell like childhood and optimism, so you buy a basket or two. Now what? You can only eat so many peaches in 2 days. Beyond that they're just fruit fly bait.

That’s where canning comes in. Canning peaches isn't easy, no matter what anyone says. In terms of canned goods - peaches are one of the most labour intensive.

🍑 As you buy your peaches, you'll be enthused by the romance of the experience, but by peach number 53, you'll be irritable. In a murderey way. 🍑

If you want an easy canning experience make canned green beans which is basically just washing beans and boiling water.

But yes, you can do this. Each step is technically easy. If you can boil water, you can can peaches. (The sticky counters and fingertip burns are just part of the initiation. Enjoy it.)

Table of Contents

Quick Summary – The Peach Canning Process in 5 Easy Steps

Rows of home canned peaches in mason jars on a rough wood table in front of a red clay brick wall.

Blanch and peel peaches
Slice, pit, and dip in lemon juice/ascorbic acid
Pack into jars (hot pack or raw pack)
Cover with syrup, juice, or water
Process in a water bath canner until sealed

That’s it. Five sticky steps. Print it out, tape it to the fridge, and buy some peaches.

What You’ll Need to Can Peaches

Ingredients

Peaches: Buy freestone if you value your sanity. The pits pop out more easily. Clingstone will make you swear, but they taste great. If you're at a market, just ask which kind they are - they'll know.
Acid: Lemon juice, citric acid, or ascorbic acid. This keeps them from turning the colour of old socks.
Syrup/juice: Sugar, honey, fruit juice, or plain water if you hate fun.

Pro Tip: It takes about 2–2.5 pounds of peaches to fill one quart jar. Yes, that means a single bushel is about to make half your Saturday sticky.

I buy an extra large basket (16 lbs) for making peaches. I'd like to make more but I just don't have it in me.

A marble island covered in equipment and ingredients needed for canning peaches including a basket of peaches, bowls of sugar, ice, mason jars, spices and canning tools.

At 16 lbs, an extra large basket like you see in my photo is more than a peck (12 lbs) but less than a half bushel (24 lbs). The basket measures 7" deep X 7" wide X 19" long.

Equipment Checklist

Mason jars, new lids, rings
Water bath canner (or a giant stockpot with a rack in the bottom)
Big pot for blanching peaches
Pot for simple syrup
Large bowls for ice bath and citric acid bath
Funnel, jar lifter, bubble remover tool (a chopstick)
3+ hours, so put on a game.

A kitchen scene with 2 large pots on a range, a tv with tennis on it, and a clock that reads 1:45.

Preparing Peaches for Canning

Tip - Buy 2nds. The fruit will have a blemish or sometimes a slight bruise but mainly it's just cosmetic issues that make them less desirable. They're much cheaper than 1sts.

Blemished peaches being held over a sink filled with peaches in water.

How to Peel Peaches

A peach skin being easily pinched off of a peach with a bowl of peaches in ice water behind.

Boil water, dunk peaches for 30–60 seconds, then shock them in ice water. Skins should slip off like socks on hardwood stairs. If they don’t, your peaches are underripe. Or mean.

You can see how I peel just a few peaches in this post on you guessed it, how to peel a peach.

Alternate methods: serrated peelers (tedious), or leaving the skins on. Yes, you can leave the skins on - there's no canning danger but you probably don’t want to. The skins are bitter and get tough.

Cutting, Pitting, and Slicing Peaches

Freestone: pit pops right out, angels sing.
Clingstone: you’ll be hacking around the pit with a knife and growing anger.

Even freestone can be hard to separate peach from pit. Do the best you can and for visual appeal, cut off any scraggy or loose pieces of peach.

Preventing Browning

Sliced, peeled peaches sit in an ironstone bowl filled with anti-browning solution.

After peeling, dip your slices in lemon juice or an ascorbic acid solution. Otherwise, they’ll oxidize into something resembling canned mushrooms.

Don't leave your peaches for longer than 20 minutes in the anti-browning solution. They'll end up tasting weird.

Making Syrup for Canning Peaches

I make my simple syrup first, before I do anything else, so I know it's done and ready to go.

6 cups of sugar being poured out of bowl into large pot.

A large pot with sugar and water for a simple syrup.

Light, Medium, and Heavy Syrup Ratios

Light: 2 cups sugar + 4 cups water
Medium: 3 cups sugar + 4 cups water
Heavy: 4 cups sugar + 4 cups water

I personally use a medium simple syrup for my canned peaches.

Sugar-Free and Alternative Syrups

Honey syrup: floral, slightly darker.
Apple or grape juice: gentle sweetness.
Plain water: technically works, but your peaches will taste like… water.

👉 Quick Ratios for Swaps

My Medium Sugar Syrup: 6 cups sugar + 8 cups water
Honey Syrup Equivalent: 3 cups honey + 8 cups water
Apple/White Grape Juice: Use straight

Step-by-Step Instructions: How to Can Peaches in a Water Bath

Step 1 – Sterilize Jars and Lids

Wash in hot, soapy water. Keep jars hot until filling (210F - 225F oven or simmering water). Nobody likes botulism.

Would you like to save this stuff?

We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.

Step 2 – Make Syrup

Choose light, medium or heavy and get that going on the stove, keeping it warm.

Step 3 – Prep Peaches

Prepped your peaches by peeling, slicing and dipping in an anti-browning solution. Rinse peaches well when you take them out of the solution.

Peeled peaches in a stainless colander being rinsed with water in a white enamel sink.

Step 4 – Fill Jars with Peaches and Syrup

Place prepped peaches into the hot sugar syrup to warm them up for a few minutes. Use a funnel. Leave ½-inch headspace. Remove bubbles with a chopstick. Wipe rims well.

Prepped peaches for canning sit in a simple syrup to heat up on a stove.

A Note about Headspace: Headspace is determined by the contents of the jar and how much liquid is present. Too much headspace and all the air won't be forced out of the jar during canning. Too little headspace and the liquid will be sucked out of the jar during the canning process. This leads to poor seals and sticky jars.

Ladling simple syrup into a 250ml mason jar filled with peaches.

Step 5 – Seal and Process

Sealer lids go on, rings are just finger-tightened, jars get set into boiling water. Cover with 1–2 inches of water.

Pints = 20 minutes
Quarts = 25 minutes
Add 5 minutes per 1,000 feet of altitude

Storing, Troubleshooting, and Safety for Canned Peaches

Do You Need a Pressure Canner for Peaches?

Nope. Peaches are high-acid. Water bath is all you need. Pressure canning works, (pressure can peaches for 10 minutes) but will make the peaches mushier. It might be a bit faster, but you get poorer quality canning.

Shelf Life and Storage Tips

Store in a cool, dark place not all over your counter where everyone can see them - even though that's where you want to put them.
Best by 12–18 months, but they'll keep for a few years. They'll be softer and not as pretty beyond 18 months.
If a jar didn’t seal, refrigerate and eat within a week.

How I Use Home-Canned Peaches

Home canned peaches topping a jar of greek yogurt with almonds.

Snacks

I plunk 1-2 canned peach halfs into the bottom of a bowl or mason jar, top with 3X as much Greek Yogurt and top withfskin nuts and a swirl of honey.

Desserts

See above. 😆

I argue with my niece about this. I claim my peach/yogurt dish is a dessert she claims it's breakfast. Feel free to have big feelings about this.

Drinks

Peach sangria, Bellinis, smoothies. Or just eat them cold out of the jar like the feral creature you are.

FAQs About Canning Peaches

Q: Can you can peaches with the skin on?
Yes. They’re safe. The texture is just… chewy. You probably don't want to attempt.

Q: How many peaches fit in a quart jar?
About 2–2.5 pounds, or four large peaches.

Tips for Packing Pretty Peaches

A perfectly packed jar of homemade peaches with cinnamon stick and cloves.

There's an art to packing peaches in a jar.

Trim each piece of fruit as cleanly as possible with no ragged peach pulp hanging off them.
Be gentle. Peaches bruise and get mashed easily.
Slide peaches into jars with their nice looking sides (usually the smooth exterior side) facing out.

Final Thoughts on Canning Peaches

A sticky, messy wood countertop with bowls and pots filled with peaches, peach juice, peach pits.

Canning peaches isn’t glamorous. It’s sweaty, sticky, and will absolutely involve washing your floor after. But when you pop open a jar in the middle of winter, you’ll forget all of that. You’ll be spooning sunshine out of glass while everyone else is gnawing on bones in the middle of January.

So yes — it’s worth it. And yes — you can absolutely do it. And yes - it's a pain.