It is quite disconcerting to open a jar of your homemade preserves, only to find nastified rust and junk under the lid.

Acidic foods have a way of destroying lids and make you wonder about the contents of your jar.

Recently, I was opening a jar of homemade something or other from the fridge and saw the nastiness.

Then I noticed some Classico pasta sauce lids that I had been saving. They have a nice waterproof coating in the interior and they fit my regular mouth canning jars!

No more gross stuff at the top of the jars!

I shared this (new to me information) with a friend of mine, who then informed me that mayo jar lids fit too. Now I’m going to be saving those too. These reused lids don’t look as nice as the canning lids, but the results are certainly much better.

Please note: I do not use these lids for the actual canning process, I only use these after canned goods are opened for use.

Do you know of any other lids that fit regular mouth canning jars? What about lids for wide mouth canning jars? I’d love to hear what you do to prevent nasty canning lids !