Chai Spiced Peaches in Light Honey Syrup

 Preserve the flavors of summer with this recipe for canned peaches; the addition of chai spices makes these a little extra special. You’re going to be so glad to have these canned peaches in your pantry this winter!

Chai spiced peaches in light honey syrup

Fresh peaches are one of the delights of summer. When the bounty is in full swing, we preserve as many as possible and use them in cobbler, to top ice cream, and turn a jar or two into peach butter to enjoy when the season has passed. Canning peaches is easy using a water bath canner; peaches are a high-acid food; pressure canning is not required!

Related: Peach Pie with Crumb Topping

Choose the right peach (if you can)

Peaches come in two stone types – freestone peaches and clingstone. When you cut into a clingstone peach, the flesh ‘clings’ to the pit, and you must do a bit of extra work to cut it away.

Freestone pits are easier to remove. In fact, when you cut  freestone peach in half, the pit will fall freely from the fruit as you open it; just give it a little twist. Choosing a freestone peach makes your preserving job easier, especially if you hope to can peach halves!

The top variety of freestone peach is Elberta. Other varieties include the El Dorado, Empress, Flavorcrest, Indian Free, O’Henry, Redgold, Reliance, and Snow Beauty. Get the rundown on all peach varieties from the PickYourOwn website.

Only have clingstone peaches available? If the price is right, go for it! You’ll still have the same great taste, but the finished slices may not be as pretty.

Related:

• Blueberry Ginger Spiced Nectarines
• How to Make Peach Butter

Choose ripe fruit for canning peaches

For best quality peaches should be ripened one or more days between harvest and canning. You can delay processing the fresh peaches by keeping them in the refrigerator. Choose ripe, mature fruit for canning peaches, but you don’t want it so ripe that it’s mushy.

Using Honey in this recipe for canned peaches

Honey will give your canned peaches (and other fruit!) an earthy flavor that most people enjoy. The best honey for canning is mildly flavored and light in color. Using honey gives you the benefit of a natural sweetener to make a light syrup that won’t overpower the flavor of the finished canned peaches.

Honey is a stronger sweetener than sugar. You only need to use ¾ a cup of honey to replace 1 cup of sugar. Using honey will darken the fruit a little more than if you use sugar to make syrup.

Honey is adult food, not suitable for children under 18 months old. Take that into consideration when you are doing your canning. Be sure that you properly mark the jars after processing so you will not share this batch with little ones.

If you’d prefer not to use honey in this recipe, you can substitute organic sugar. (See recipe notes.)

Canning peaches with chai spices

Adding spices to this recipe for canned peaches gives the fruit a bit of depth. If you don’t have chai spice on hand, or prefer to keep it simple, just skip adding the spices.

Easy peeling and slicing

The easiest way to peel peaches for home canning is to give them a quick dip in boiling water. Follow that with a plunge in ice cold water. This process will allow you to easily slip the skins from the peaches. Once skinned, decide if you prefer peach halves or slices. Halves are pretty, but you’ll get more peaches in each jar if you opt to slice them into smaller pieces.

Filling the jars & processing times

You’ll pack peach halves or slices into wide mouth canning jars to within about 1/2″ of the jar rim and then add the syrup, maintaining that half-inch space at the top.

• 25 minutes for pint size jars
• 30 minutes for quart jars

Note that if you live at an altitude above 1,000′ elevation, you may need to adjust the processing times. Check with your local cooperative extension office or visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation for more information.

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