A Favorite Tool: Canning Funnel

I heart my funnel
Mrs. Homegrown here:
If you are a home canner, you probably already have one of these and know how useful they are. If you don’t can, you might never have seen one before. I hadn’t before we started canning–and I don’t know how I lived so long without one. See, a canning funnel is just a wide mouthed funnel made to fit the mouths of canning jars. It allows you to quickly and efficiently ladle up hot food from the stove top into the jars. If you’re canning without one, heaven help you! Go get one! 
Even if you don’t can, you still need one. If, like me, you’re buying more dried goods and bulk foods, or drying herbs and vegetables, you probably use a lot of jars. Canning jars are an easy, efficient way to store food–far better than a cabinet full of random bags and boxes.You can see what you have and exactly how much you have. They line up in attractive rows. They’re also moth safe, if you’re using proper canning lids. I’m always transferring something or another into a jar–a bag of beans, a batch of dried mint, fresh yogurt–whatever. The canning funnel makes this a snap. Before I had one, I was either winging it and spilling a lot, or fashioning funnels out of newspaper. Life is just to short to chase beans around the kitchen. I use this thing every day.
Here’s a hint: If you have one of those little mesh tea strainers made to fit in the top of a tea pot (they always sell them in Asian markets), you’ll find it fits perfectly both into the funnel and into the mouth of a quart jar. Using one with your funnel, you can strain off tea, oil infusions, vinegar, etc. with no fuss or muss.

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9 Comments

  1. My funnel has changed me life! That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I do love my funnel. I even take it with me to the co-op to easily dispense dried goods into jars in the bulk aisle. I was tired of chasing beans around the floor, too.

  2. Have 3!! Actually, one is not a true canning funnel and does not fit into the small mouth jars, only the large ones. BUT it is a big funnel that will hold my mesh coffee filters which are what I use to strain herbs out of (name it – oil, alcohol, water) and keeps it all out of the pyrex measuring jar its going into! Oh yeah, own two of those mesh coffee filter thingies. Always on the looking out for more of the above!

  3. Yes! Ball Jars are one of my favorite items in the entire world, and a funnel is the perfect match once you start storing food in the jars, bringing drinks and food to go in the jars, etc. I’ve also found that an old t-shirt works great as a strainer if you need a super-fine mesh.

  4. Bought one of these two weeks ago and had the same experience as you and the commenter. Ended up using it almost every day, handiest tool eva!

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