Homemade Chili Con Carne is a hearty, flavorful meal made with ground beef, Italian sausage, beans, tomatoes, peppers, and a delicious blend of spices. This Chili Con Carne Canning Recipe brings together everything you love about traditional homemade chili in a convenient meal in a jar that you can enjoy throughout the year.
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Last updated: October 7, 2026 By Diane Devereaux | The Canning Diva®
Key Takeaways
Hearty meal in a jar: This Chili Con Carne Canning Recipe combines ground beef, Italian sausage, three varieties of beans, Roma tomatoes, and bold seasonings.
Perfect for pantry meal planning: Home-canned chili provides a convenient foundation for quick lunches, weeknight dinners, and hearty comfort meals.
Generous batch size: The recipe makes approximately 9 quarts or 18 pints, allowing you to preserve multiple meals in one canning session.
Versatile serving options: Enjoy your homemade chili in a bowl, over baked potatoes, alongside cornbread, or as a flavorful addition to chili omelets.
Pressure canning required: Chili contains low-acid ingredients, including meat and beans, and requires a properly validated pressure-canning process rather than water bath canning.
Unlike a simple beef chili, my recipe combines three varieties of beans—black beans, kidney beans, and pinto beans—with two types of meat for a rich, satisfying texture. Fresh Roma tomatoes, garlic, jalapeños, and chili powder create a savory foundation with just enough heat to warm you from the inside out.
Pressure canning homemade chili allows you to prepare larger batches and stock your pantry with ready-to-heat meals. Whether you need a quick weeknight dinner, a hearty lunch, or something delicious to serve during football season, having jars of homemade Chili Con Carne on your pantry shelves makes mealtime easier.
One of my favorite Meals in a Jar is my home canned Chili with meat and beans! Especially when the snow starts to fly in Michigan - nothing beats heating up a quart of chili to warm me from the inside out!
Why Make Homemade Chili Con Carne for Your Pantry?
One of the greatest advantages of home canning is the ability to preserve complete meals instead of individual ingredients. While having jars of tomatoes, beans, and meat on your pantry shelves is certainly useful, combining those ingredients into a flavorful meal saves valuable preparation time later.
Homemade Chili Con Carne is particularly convenient during the fall and winter months when hearty, warming meals become a regular part of the dinner rotation. Rather than starting dinner from scratch, you can open a jar of chili, heat it thoroughly, and serve it with your favorite accompaniments.
Preparing larger batches also helps you make the most of seasonal ingredients. Fresh Roma tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and jalapeños contribute wonderful flavor, while the combination of beef, sausage, and beans creates a satisfying meal.
What Makes This Chili Con Carne Recipe Different?
My homemade Chili Con Carne features several ingredients that contribute to its distinctive flavor and texture.
Ground beef and Italian sausage: Combining two types of meat creates a richer flavor than using ground beef alone. The Italian sausage contributes additional savory seasoning that complements the chili powder, cumin, and peppers.
Three varieties of beans: Black beans, kidney beans, and pinto beans each contribute a slightly different texture. Together, they make the chili hearty and satisfying.
Fresh Roma tomatoes: Roma tomatoes provide the tomato foundation for this recipe. Their meaty texture and rich flavor work beautifully with the other ingredients.
Layers of seasoning: Chili powder, cumin, garlic, red pepper flakes, jalapeños, and Tabasco sauce give this recipe its distinctive character. These seasonings work together to create a bold, flavorful chili.
Love Canning Meals in a Jar?
Bring delicious, ready-to-eat meals to your pantry! In Meals in a Jar, I share flavorful pressure canning recipes to simplify meal making and build a well-stocked pantry. Explore over 90 recipes inspired by international cuisines, comforting family favorites, and hearty one-jar meals.
Delicious Ways to Serve Home-Canned Chili Con Carne
One reason I love keeping homemade chili in my pantry is its versatility. A single jar can become the foundation for several different meals.
Classic chili bowls: Heat your chili and serve it with shredded cheese, sour cream, chopped onions, or fresh cilantro.
Chili baked potatoes: Spoon hot chili over a fluffy baked potato and finish with your favorite toppings.
Chili and cornbread: Pair a hearty bowl of chili with homemade cornbread for a comforting fall dinner.
Chili omelets: Use a pint-sized jar of chili to create a delicious, protein-rich breakfast.
Chili bread bowls: Serve hot chili inside a hollowed-out bread bowl for a fun and filling meal.
Chili nachos: Spoon heated chili over tortilla chips, add shredded cheese, and finish with your favorite nacho toppings.
These simple serving ideas make homemade Chili Con Carne a valuable addition to your pantry meal rotation.
Tips for Preparing Flavorful Homemade Chili
Prepare Your Vegetables Consistently. Vegetable preparation influences the finished texture of your chili. I prefer finely chopped vegetables because they distribute evenly throughout the meat and beans without leaving large chunks. A food processor makes this step especially convenient. Pulse the vegetables until finely chopped rather than puréed.
Build Flavor Before Combining Ingredients. Browning the ground beef and Italian sausage develops a savory foundation. Cooking the peppers, onions, garlic, and seasonings with the browned meat helps distribute their flavors throughout the chili.
Adjust the Heat to Your Preference. Jalapeños, red pepper flakes, and Tabasco sauce contribute heat to this recipe. When serving your finished chili, you can always add more hot sauce or additional spices to suit individual preferences.
Plan for Different Serving Sizes. Pint jars work particularly well for smaller households, individual lunches, and recipes that use chili as an ingredient. Quart jars offer convenient portions for larger meals and family dinners. Choose your jar size based on how you plan to use the finished chili, and follow the appropriate processing instructions.
Diane’s Homemade Chili Con Carne Canning Recipe
Makes approx. 9 quarts or 18 pints
This recipe is delicious served in a bowl with a side of beer bread, or inside a bread bowl! You may also use it when making an omelet. I love canning in pint size jars which are a perfect size for creating a hearty chili omelet breakfast! Perfect for stocking your pantry with homemade comfort food, this chili makes a delicious, convenient dinner any time of year.
Ingredients
5 lbs of hamburger
2 lbs Italian sausage
2 bell peppers, finely chopped (any color)
1 large onion, finely chopped onions
4 large stalks parsley, finely chopped
1 jalapenos, remove seeds and finely chopped (keep seeds if you want more HEAT in your chili)
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chili powder, divided
1 tsp cumin seeds
12 cups diced Roma tomatoes, approximately 24-36 small Romas
½ lb of rehydrated black beans
½ lb of rehydrated kidney beans
¼ lb rehydrated pinto beans
(If you prefer to use store bought canned beans, it would equal 2 cans of black, 2 cans of kidney and 1 can of pinto beans.)
¼ cup cumin power
1-2 tsp red pepper flakes
6-8 drops Tabasco sauce
4 tsp course canning salt, optional
Black pepper to taste
Instructions
Bean Prep: As with any dried beans, be sure to sort out any disfigured or damaged beans as well as any rocks that may have made it into the bag. Rinse the beans in a large colander to remove any dirt. Quick soak your dried beans using the following method: Place dried beans in a large stock pot and cover beans entirely with water. Bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Cover and let soak for 1 hour.
Vegetable Prep: My family does not like large chunks of vegetables in their chili or spaghetti sauce, so I place my vegetables in a food processor and pulse until they are finely finely chopped, not pureed. Pureed would water down the chili too much. If you like your chili chunky, by all means, chop the vegetables to your size preference – doing your best to keep them uniform in size – and feel free to mash your tomatoes with a potato masher. I pulse my tomatoes first, measure, then set aside. I then pulse the onions, peppers, garlic and parsley together seeing they are added to the chili at the same time.
Brown hamburger and sausage in a large stainless steel stock pot. I use lean meat so I rarely have much excess grease, however, whether you drain the fat or blot up excess with a paper towel, be sure to remove excess fat from the meat.
Add bell peppers, onions, parsley, jalapeno, minced garlic, ½ cup chili powder and 1 tsp cumin seeds to the cooked meat mixture. Stir everything together well so the chili flavor can permeate the meat. Cook on medium-heat until onions are translucent and tender, about 8 minutes.
Add tomatoes, beans, cumin powder, red pepper flakes, Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper and remaining 1/2 cup chili powder to the stock pot and mix well. Bring contents to a boil stirring often to avoid scorching. Reduce heat and boil gently for 15 minutes, stirring often. I use this gentle boiling period to reduce the water content to avoid my chili being too runny.
Ladle chili into hot jars being sure to leave a generous 1-inch headspace. I have found that leaving just under an inch of headspace helps the lid seal better giving the grease content of the meat. Remove any air pockets using your headspace measuring tool and add additional chili if necessary, being sure to keep the 1-1/4 inch of headspace.
Wipe the jar rims with warm wash clothed dipped in vinegar (the vinegar cuts through the grease aiding in a better lid seal). Place prepared lids and rings on each quart and hand tighten.
Pressure can 10 pounds of pressure, or according to your elevation, quarts for 90 minutes and pints for 75 minutes.
This recipe is delicious served in a bowl with a side of beer bread, or inside a bread bowl! You may also use it when making an omelet. I love canning in pint size jars which are a perfect size for creating a hearty chili omelet breakfast! Perfect for stocking your pantry with homemade comfort food, this chili makes a delicious, convenient dinner any time of year.
Servings
9 quarts or 18 pints
servings
Prep time
45
minutes
Ingredients
5lbshamburger
2lbsItalian sausage
2bell peppers, finely chopped (any color)
1largeonion, finely chopped onions
4largestalks parsley, finely chopped
1jalapenos, remove seeds and finely chopped (keep seeds if you want more HEAT in your chili)
5garlic cloves, minced
1cupchili powder, divided
1tspcumin seeds
12cupsdiced Roma tomatoes, approximately 24-36 small Romas
½lbrehydrated black beans
½lbrehydrated kidney beans
¼lbrehydrated pinto beans
(If you prefer to use store bought canned beans, it would equal 2 cans of black, 2 cans of kidney and 1 can of pinto beans.)
¼cupcumin power
1-2 tsp red pepper flakes
6-8 drops Tabasco sauce
4tspcourse canning salt, optional
Black pepper to taste
Instructions
Bean Prep: As with any dried beans, be sure to sort out any disfigured or damaged beans as well as any rocks that may have made it into the bag. Rinse the beans in a large colander to remove any dirt. Quick soak your dried beans using the following method: Place dried beans in a large stock pot and cover beans entirely with water. Bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Cover and let soak for 1 hour.
Vegetable Prep: My family does not like large chunks of vegetables in their chili or spaghetti sauce, so I place my vegetables in a food processor and pulse until they are finely finely chopped, not pureed. Pureed would water down the chili too much. If you like your chili chunky, by all means, chop the vegetables to your size preference – doing your best to keep them uniform in size – and feel free to mash your tomatoes with a potato masher. I pulse my tomatoes first, measure, then set aside. I then pulse the onions, peppers, garlic and parsley together seeing they are added to the chili at the same time.
Brown hamburger and sausage in a large stainless steel stock pot. I use lean meat so I rarely have much excess grease, however, whether you drain the fat or blot up excess with a paper towel, be sure to remove excess fat from the meat.
Add bell peppers, onions, parsley, jalapeno, minced garlic, ½ cup chili powder and 1 tsp cumin seeds to the cooked meat mixture. Stir everything together well so the chili flavor can permeate the meat. Cook on medium-heat until onions are translucent and tender, about 8 minutes.
Add tomatoes, beans, cumin powder, red pepper flakes, Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper and remaining 1/2 cup chili powder to the stock pot and mix well. Bring contents to a boil stirring often to avoid scorching. Reduce heat and boil gently for 15 minutes, stirring often. I use this gentle boiling period to reduce the water content to avoid my chili being too runny.
Ladle chili into hot jars being sure to leave a generous 1-inch headspace. I have found that leaving just under an inch of headspace helps the lid seal better giving the grease content of the meat. Remove any air pockets using your headspace measuring tool and add additional chili if necessary, being sure to keep the 1-1/4 inch of headspace.
Wipe the jar rims with warm wash clothed dipped in vinegar (the vinegar cuts through the grease aiding in a better lid seal). Place prepared lids and rings on each quart and hand tighten.
Pressure can 10 pounds of pressure, or according to your elevation, quarts for 90 minutes and pints for 75 minutes.
Q: What is the difference between chili and Chili Con Carne?
A: Chili con carne literally means chili with meat. Recipes vary by region and personal preference, but typically include meat, chile peppers, and seasonings. Many American-style versions also include tomatoes and beans.
Q: What can you serve with home-canned Chili Con Carne?
A: Homemade Chili Con Carne pairs beautifully with cornbread, crackers, baked potatoes, rice, and bread bowls. You can also use it as a topping for nachos or incorporate it into a hearty breakfast omelet.
About the Author: Diane Devereaux, The Canning Diva®, is an internationally recognized food preservation expert, author, and educator with over 30 years of home canning experience. She’s the author of multiple top-selling canning books and teaches workshops across the U.S. Learn more at CanningDiva.com.
