How to Pressure Can Salmon in Canada (Bernardin Method)

Pressure-canned salmon is the most-Canadian fish preserve. Pacific coast First Nations have been canning salmon traditionally for over a century. East Coast fishing families pressure-can the morning catch.

A jar of home-canned salmon is dramatically better than commercial canned salmon — more flavour, cleaner texture, complete control of salt level. And the bones, softened by the long pressure cycle, become a calcium-rich edible part of the product.

This is a pressure-canning recipe. Pressure canning is the only safe home method for fish. Bernardin processes salmon for 100 minutes against 75 to 90 for their tested meats, so heat is slow to reach the middle of a jar of fish — follow the rules exactly.

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Corrected 19 September 2026: this page told you to bleach-clean anything a bulging jar had touched. No source we hold publishes a disinfectant for that surface, and the page already carried HealthLink BC’s disposal steps further up, so it was contradicting itself. HealthLink BC’s disposal steps name no disinfectant: hands with warm soapy water, then wash every utensil and surface. Their file is unreachable from our tooling today (HTTP 000), so this follows the wording this site already carries on forty other pages from an earlier read of it. Discard, do not taste and do not open in a way that aerosolises the contents are unchanged.

Before you start — the safety rules

1. Use a genuine pressure canner. Presto 23-quart, All American 921, or another tested model. See pressure canner guide. Pressure cookers and Instant Pots are NOT pressure canners.
2. 10 PSI minimum at altitudes up to 1000 ft (305 m). Higher PSI at altitude.
3. 100 minutes for fish, in 250 mL or 500 mL jars alike — longer than the 75 to 90 minutes for meat. Don’t shortcut it, and don’t use 1 L jars.
4. Vent the canner 10 full minutes before applying the regulator.
5. Cool the canner naturally — never force-cool.

What you need

For 6-8 × 250 mL jars or 4-5 × 500 mL jars:

• 2-3 kg fresh salmon — head and tail removed, cleaned of viscera. Salmon only; see what this recipe does not cover
• Optional: pickling salt — 1 tsp (5 mL) per 500 mL jar, ½ tsp (2 mL) per 250 mL jar. No 1 L jars — Bernardin does not permit them for fish
• Optional: 1 tsp olive oil per 500 mL jar for richness
• Bernardin 250 mL or 500 mL wide-mouth jars — wide-mouth strongly preferred for packing fish
• Fresh SNAP lids and bands
• Pressure canner (Presto 23-quart or All American 921)
• Standard canning kit — jar lifter, headspace tool, funnel, large bowl for handling fish, sharp knife, cutting board
• Apron — fish handling is messy

Pick your fish

Most-canned in Canada

• Sockeye salmon (BC, Yukon) — deep red flesh, classic Pacific canned-salmon look
• Coho salmon (BC) — milder flavour, still excellent
• Pink salmon (BC, very common) — lightest in colour and flavour; the budget-canned salmon
• Chinook / King salmon (BC) — premium; sometimes too rich to can (the natural fat content makes for a very oily product)

What this recipe does not cover

Lake trout, brook and rainbow trout, and Arctic char.

This page used to give all three the salmon time. As far as anything we can check, none of them was ever tested at it: Bernardin’s tested recipe is Salmon, and a processing time is calculated for one fish at one density in one jar size. Extending it to another species is not a shorter or longer version of the same recipe — it is an untested process, on a low-acid food where the failure mode is botulism.

Corrected 14 September 2026: this page briefly excluded Atlantic salmon along with the trout and char. That was our error in the other direction — Bernardin’s recipe is Salmon without qualification, so Atlantic was always in scope, and “Pacific” was our own wording read back as theirs. If you put Atlantic salmon in the freezer on the strength of the earlier version, it was safe to can by this recipe.

So this page gives no time for them, and we are not going to estimate one. If your Bernardin edition carries a recipe for the fish you have, follow that recipe as written.

Don’t pressure can

• Atlantic cod — not this recipe. The Bernardin recipe this page is built on is Salmon; use a tested recipe written for cod.
• Tuna — not this recipe, and not this guide. Use a tested recipe written for tuna.
• Shellfish — specialized recipes only; high botulism risk if done wrong

Method

Step 1: Prep the fish

1. Clean fish thoroughly — gutted, scaled, head and tail removed, blood line scraped out (the dark line of blood vessels along the spine).
2. Wash under cool running water to remove any blood, slime, or residue.
3. Decide on bones:
   • Bones in (traditional, calcium-rich): leave intact; the long cook softens them
   • Bones out (cleaner product): fillet the fish, removing the spine and rib bones. The pin bones can be left in (they soften too) or removed with fish-bone tweezers.
4. Decide on skin:
   • Skin on (more flavour, slightly chewier): traditional
   • Skin off (cleaner): also fine
5. Cut fish into chunks that fit your chosen jar size:
   • 250 mL jar: 3-4 cm chunks
   • 500 mL jar: 4-5 cm chunks
   • Pack as tight as possible without crushing

Step 2: Prep the canner

1. Add 7-8 cm of water to the pressure canner with the rack inside.
2. Leave the canner water at room temperature. Bernardin fills the canner with room-temperature water for fish, for the same reason they do not preheat the jars.
3. Have clean, room-temperature jars ready on the counter. Bernardin says explicitly not to heat jars before filling for fish — unlike every other recipe on this site.

Step 3: Pack the jars (raw pack)

1. Add salt to each room-temperature jar: 1 tsp (5 mL) for 500 mL, ½ tsp (2 mL) for 250 mL — Bernardin’s amounts, and the ones in the ingredient list above.
2. Optionally add 1 tsp olive oil per 500 mL jar for richness.
3. Pack raw fish chunks into the room-temperature jars, leaving 2.5 cm (1 inch) headspace. Bernardin publishes 2.5 cm for fish, the same headspace as their pressure-canned meats.
4. Do not add liquid — fish releases its own.
5. Don’t press fish too tightly — packed too dense and heat can’t penetrate. Snug but not crushed.
6. Wipe rims with a clean damp cloth (wipe with a vinegar-dampened cloth if there’s any oil residue from the fish — clean rims are essential for seal).
7. Apply fresh SNAP lids fingertip-tight.

Step 4: Process

1. Lower jars into the canner. Water level should be 7-8 cm — not covering jars.
2. Lock the lid. Heat on high.
3. Vent for 10 full minutes. Critical safety step.
4. Apply the regulator. Bring to 10 PSI at altitudes up to 1000 ft (305 m).
5. Start the timer when 10 PSI is reached:
   • 250 mL jars: 100 minutes at 10 PSI
   • 500 mL jars: 100 minutes at 10 PSI — the same as 250 mL
6. Maintain pressure throughout. If it drops below 10 PSI even briefly, restart the timer.

Step 5: Cool and check

1. Turn off heat. Don’t move the canner.
2. Let depressurize naturally — 45-60 minutes. Never force-cool.
3. Once at zero, remove the weight, wait 2 minutes, unlock the lid.
4. Lift jars with jar lifter. Cool 24 hours undisturbed on a towel.
5. Check seals. Wipe jars clean. Label with date.
6. Store in cool dark dry place.

If a jar doesn’t seal: the 24-hour rule applies. Bernardin publishes three endings for an unsealed jar of any product: reprocess it immediately, refrigerate it and use within a few days, or freeze it (reprocessing means the full 100-minute cycle). No authority publishes a separate, shorter window for low-acid food, so take the short end of those few days rather than the long end.

Corrected 21 September 2026: this page told you to refrigerate an unsealed jar and eat it within 2 days, and said fish has a shorter refrigerator window than other low-acid foods. Both were ours. Bernardin publishes one instruction for an unsealed jar of any product — reprocess immediately, refrigerate and use within a few days, or freeze — and no authority publishes a separate window for fish. The page now reports that and points you to the short end of those few days. This is the unsealed jar; the separate correction below covers an opened one.

Altitude adjustments

Altitude	Weighted gauge	Dial gauge
0 – 305 m	10 PSI	11 PSI
306 – 609 m	15 PSI	11 PSI
610 – 1,219 m	15 PSI	12 PSI
1,220 – 1,828 m	15 PSI	13 PSI
1,829 – 2,438 m	15 PSI	14 PSI
2,439 – 3,048 m	15 PSI	15 PSI

The time stays 100 minutes; the PSI changes. See Canadian altitude table.

Storage

• Cool, dark, dry place at room temperature
• Best quality 12 months — Bernardin’s guidance is to use home-canned food within one year. That is a quality window, not an expiry: the jar is as safe as the process made it. Colour, flavour and texture fade.
• After opening: no authority we could find publishes a window specific to canned fish. HealthLink BC publishes one week for any opened home-canned container.
• Inspect every jar before opening — bulging lids, off smell, foam, or leakage means discard the jar without tasting

Corrected 20 September 2026: this page previously gave an after-opening window of 2 days for canned fish, a figure no authority we could find publishes. It now reports what is published and nothing more: no authority we could find publishes a window for opened canned fish, and HealthLink BC File #22 publishes one week for any opened home-canned container. Anyone who discarded a jar after two days was going by a number we had no source for. The shelf life of the sealed jar is unchanged.

Botulism is the real risk with home-canned fish. Any jar with bulging, leaking, or any sign of spoilage must be discarded without opening or tasting. Seal it in a waterproof container and put it in the garbage — do not open it, do not boil it, and do not feed it to animals. Full steps here.

How to use canned salmon

• Salmon patties / cakes — drained, mixed with breadcrumbs, egg, herbs, pan-fried
• Salmon salad — drained, mixed with mayo, celery, dill (replaces tuna salad)
• Salmon pasta — drained into hot pasta with cream, lemon, dill
• Salmon chowder — drop a jar into a creamy potato chowder
• Salmon sandwiches — drained, mashed with mayo, on bread with lettuce
• On a charcuterie board — straight from the jar with crackers and cream cheese
• Salmon spread — blend with cream cheese, dill, capers, lemon
• Quiche or frittata — fold drained salmon into the egg base
• Fish tacos — flake into corn tortillas with cabbage slaw
• As a quick protein — over salad, on toast, in a wrap

The bones in home-canned salmon (if you left them in) are completely soft and edible — crush with a fork into salmon patties or spread.

Variations

Smoked salmon canning

Smoked fish is a separate tested recipe with its own processing time, not this one with a smoking step bolted on. Smoking changes the salt content, the moisture and the density of the flesh, which is exactly what a processing time is calculated against — so the 100 minutes above does not carry over, and we do not publish a substitute for it.

If you want to can smoked salmon, follow a tested recipe written for smoked fish, as written. We have not read one, so we are not going to tell you where to find it or what it says. This is the highest-consequence category on the site, and an extrapolated time is not a tested one.

Salmon with garlic and dill

Add 1 garlic clove + 1 sprig of fresh dill per 500 mL jar. Mediterranean influence.

Salmon in oil

Stay at the 1 tsp olive oil per 500 mL jar the recipe above already allows, and reduce the salt to taste. Don’t pour in more than that: oil carries heat more slowly than the fish’s own liquid, and the 100 minutes was calculated for a jar packed the way this recipe packs it.

Salmon with lemon zest (don’t add lemon juice)

Add the zest of ½ lemon per 500 mL jar for brightness. Zest is fine; skip the juice — as the FAQ above says, added acid isn’t needed here and it breaks down the soft-bone texture the long cycle produces.

Spice-rubbed salmon

Coat fish chunks lightly with 1 tsp ground black pepper + ½ tsp paprika before packing.

Trout and char

No variation of this recipe. See what this recipe does not cover — they need a recipe written for them, not this one with the species swapped.

Common problems

• Liquid siphoned out (jar partially empty). Very common with fish — fish releases lots of moisture during processing. Siphoning does not change whether the jar was processed according to current home canning recommendations, and that is the condition Bernardin’s clearance rests on — not the liquid level. See why jars lose liquid.
• Strong fish smell when opening. Some fishy smell is normal. If it smells putrid or rotten, discard.
• Fish texture is mushy. Over-processed or fish was over-soft to start. Use fresher, firmer fish.
• Fish stuck to jar bottom. Pack more loosely next time. Doesn’t affect safety.
• Skin separated from flesh during processing. Normal. Eat or discard the skin pieces.
• Brown discoloration at the top of the jar. Air exposure / oxidation. Pack more tightly; ensure complete coverage by natural liquid. Cosmetic.
• Jar didn’t seal. The 24-hour rule. Bernardin says reprocess immediately, refrigerate and use within a few days, or freeze — take the short end of those few days for a low-acid food.
• Bulging lid weeks/months later. Discard immediately. Do not taste. Do not open in a way that aerosolizes contents. Wrap and dispose, then follow the disposal steps above — HealthLink BC names no disinfectant for the surfaces.

Why home-canned salmon is worth it

• Dramatically better than commercial — fresh fish, exactly your seasoning, BPA-free
• Cost-effective for fishers — when you’ve caught the daily limit, canning is the storage method that preserves all of it
• Heritage Canadian preserve — Pacific First Nations, BC coastal communities, Atlantic Canadian fishing families
• Convenience meal protein — open a jar; use in salads, sandwiches, pasta in minutes
• Calcium-rich if bones left in — important if you don’t eat dairy
• Hunter / homesteader essential — same equipment makes meat, fish, beans, soup all shelf-stable

Yield expectations

• 2-3 kg fresh salmon → 6-8 × 250 mL jars OR 4-5 × 500 mL jars
• A typical Canadian fishing-household-canning session uses 5-15 kg of fish and yields 12-30 jars (a year+ supply)

Next steps

• Best pressure canner in Canada — Presto vs All American — equipment guide
• How to pressure can chicken in Canada — companion protein
• How to pressure can beef stew in Canada — companion meal-in-a-jar
• How to pressure can bone broth in Canada — chicken and beef stock, the two Bernardin publishes
• Pressure canning pillar — broader method context
• Canning altitude adjustments — required reading
• How to tell if canned food has gone bad — botulism awareness (critical for fish)
• SNAP lid reuse rules — fresh lids every batch