Can I can pumpkin butter?
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No. There is no tested way to can pumpkin butter at home, in a boiling water canner or a pressure canner. The National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP) says home canning is not recommended for pumpkin butter or any mashed or pureed pumpkin or winter squash. Pumpkin is a low-acid food, and its acidity and thickness vary so much from batch to batch that no single safe process can be set; home-made pumpkin butters have measured as high as pH 5.4. Make pumpkin butter, then keep it in the refrigerator for short use or freeze it. The same goes for squash, sweet potato and banana butters. This page explains why, and what it means if you sell.
Why no one can give you a safe time
The usual reasoning for canning jam is that the fruit is acidic, so a short boiling water process is enough. Pumpkin breaks every part of that reasoning.
It is low-acid. Pumpkin and winter squash have a pH above 4.6 [1], the line above which federal rules treat a food as low-acid and botulism becomes possible [2]. Boiling water does not destroy the bacteria that matter in a low-acid food.
Adding acid does not reliably fix it. A 1995 University of Missouri study found that pumpkin butters made from the same formula had highly variable pH, and butters made by home canners measured as high as pH 5.4 [1]. NCHFP concludes that adding sugar, vinegar or lemon juice does not reliably make the product safe, because the finished acidity still varies too much from batch to batch [1].
It is too thick to heat evenly. Research at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s found too much variation in the thickness (viscosity) of pumpkin purees to calculate a single processing recommendation [1]. In a dense puree, heat moves by slow conduction, and the center of the jar may never reach the temperature the process assumes. That is why NCHFP's warning covers pressure canning of mashed pumpkin as well [1].
Water activity varies too. NCHFP lists acidity, viscosity and water activity as the three properties that vary too much between batches to verify safety [1].
Put together, NCHFP's conclusion is that "a single recommendation cannot be made to ensure a safe product at this time" [1]. A recipe that tells you to water bath pumpkin butter for 10 or 15 minutes is not tested, no matter how much lemon juice it adds.
Other spreads in the same position
| Spread | Can it be home canned? | What the sources say |
|---|---|---|
| Pumpkin butter | No | Not recommended in any form of home canning [1] |
| Winter squash butter (butternut, acorn, kabocha) | No | Covered by the same NCHFP warning on mashed or pureed winter squash [1] |
| Sweet potato butter | No tested process found | No USDA, NCHFP or extension recipe for a canned sweet potato butter was found for this page |
| Banana butter or jam | No tested process found | The federal acidified food definition names tropical fruits among its examples of low-acid foods [2]; no tested canned banana spread was found |
| White peach butter | No | White peaches are low-acid, with no researched water bath acidification; freezing is recommended [3] |
| Apple, pear, peach (yellow), plum, apricot, grape, quince butter | Yes, from a tested recipe | These are the fruits in tested butter recipes and in the federal fruit butter standard [4]; see apple butter and other fruit butters |
Notice that none of the spreads in the "no" rows is a fruit on the federal fruit butter list. That list (apple, apricot, grape, peach, pear, plum, prune and quince) [4] is a legal standard, not a safety list, but it happens to line up with the fruits that are acidic enough for a boiling water canner.
What to do instead
You can still make pumpkin butter. It just has to stay cold.
To keep it in the refrigerator
- Cook the butter to the thickness you like, from any recipe.
- Ladle it into clean jars or containers and let it cool, uncovered, until it stops steaming.
- Cover and refrigerate promptly, at 40°F or below.
- Use it soon. No source reviewed for this page gives a tested refrigerator shelf life for pumpkin butter, so make small batches you will finish quickly, and freeze the rest the day you make it.
- Discard any container that shows mold, bubbles, or a sour or off smell.
Do not seal hot pumpkin butter in canning jars and set them in the refrigerator expecting them to keep for months. A lid that seals from the heat proves nothing about safety, and a sealed, low-acid, low-oxygen jar is exactly the setting botulism needs if the refrigerator runs warm.
To freeze it
- Cool the butter quickly, in a shallow pan or a bowl set in ice water.
- Pack it into freezer containers or freezer-safe jars, leaving room for it to expand.
- Label with the name and date and freeze.
- Thaw in the refrigerator and treat thawed butter as fresh: keep it cold and use it soon.
Freezing stops microbes growing rather than killing them, so the butter is only as safe as the care with which it was made and cooled. For the same reason, Penn State recommends freezing as the method for preserving white peaches [3].
Giving it as a gift
Write "Keep refrigerated" (or "Keep frozen") on the tag, with the date. A jar of pumpkin butter looks exactly like a jar of shelf-stable apple butter, and the person you give it to may put it in the pantry.
What this means if you sell
A shelf-stable pumpkin butter cannot be made safely in a home kitchen, so it cannot be sold as one under a cottage food law that covers shelf-stable foods. Several states make that explicit by excluding fruit butters or limiting them to particular fruits:
| State | What its rules say about fruit butters (checked October 2026) |
|---|---|
| Michigan | No fruit butters under cottage food [5] |
| Nevada | No fruit butters [6] |
| Utah | No fruit butters under the cottage food program [7] |
| Oregon | Fruit butters only from fruit with a natural pH below 4.60 [8] |
| California | Fruit butters that comply with 21 CFR Part 150 [9] |
| Washington | Standardized fruit butters under 21 CFR 150 [10] |
| Virginia | The July 2026 home food processing FAQ lists apple butter and banana jam among the jams and jellies that may not be allowed [11] |
California and Washington tie fruit butters to the federal standard, whose fruit list does not include pumpkin [4]. Oregon's pH test excludes pumpkin by definition, since its pH is above 4.60 [1]. A refrigerated pumpkin butter is a different product: it needs temperature control, and most cottage food laws cover only foods that do not. Check your state's page in selling jam in your state, and the pattern across states on preserves cottage food laws often exclude.
Shelf-stable pumpkin butters in stores are made in licensed plants under a process that a process authority set for that exact formula, with controls a home kitchen cannot reproduce. If you want to sell pumpkin butter, that is the route: a licensed kitchen and a scheduled process. Process authorities and scheduled processes explains how that review works.
The name, if you sell a refrigerated version
"Pumpkin butter" is a customary name, but pumpkin is not one of the fruits in the federal fruit butter standard [4], so it is not a standardized "butter" in the sense the CFR uses. If you sell a refrigerated version through a licensed route, ask your regulator how they want it named; an informative name such as "Pumpkin Spread" avoids implying a standardized product.
The fruit butters you can can
If what you want is a jar for the pantry, make apple, pear or plum butter instead. Apple butter and other fruit butters has tested recipes and processing times.
References
- National Center for Home Food Preservation, Beware: Pumpkin Butter, December 7, 2012. https://nchfp.uga.edu/blog/beware-pumpkin-butter
- Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 114.3, Definitions (Cornell LII), current. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/114.3
- Penn State Extension, Morrow, Preserving White Peaches, updated March 22, 2024. https://extension.psu.edu/preserving-white-peaches
- Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 150.110, Fruit butter (Cornell LII), current. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/150.110
- Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, What Can I Make? (cottage food), undated (viewed October 2026). https://www.michigan.gov/mdard/food-dairy/cottage-food/what-can-i-make
- Southern Nevada Health District, Cottage Food FAQ, September 24, 2026. https://www.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/permits-and-regulations/cottage-food-operations/cottage-food-faq/
- Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, List of Permitted Cottage Food Products, undated (viewed October 2026). https://ag.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/Permitted-Cottage-Food-Products.pdf
- Oregon Department of Agriculture, Oregon's Cottage Food Exemption, March 2026. https://www.oregon.gov/oda/Documents/Publications/FoodSafety/CottageFoodExemptionENG.pdf
- California Department of Public Health, Cottage Food Operations, undated (viewed October 2026). https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CEH/DFDCS/Pages/FDBPrograms/FoodSafetyProgram/CottageFoodOperations.aspx
- Washington State Register, WSR 16-06-014 (amendments to WAC 16-149, cottage food operations), 2016. https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/Law/WSR/2016/06/16-06-014.htm
- Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Virginia's Home Food Processing Exemptions FAQ (VDACS-FSP-EXFAQ-REVJUL2026), July 2026 (hosted by the Virginia Department of Health). https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/content/uploads/sites/126/Virginias-Home-Food-Processing-Exemptions-FAQ-July-2026-1.pdf
