Home Canned Chicken

Home canned meats, poultry and fish are convenient products to have in a well stocked pantry. I don't purposely buy large amounts of meat to can nor do I can a lot of meat in comparison to some home canners. Rather canning meat is a spur of the moment opportunity that presents itself. Sunday we stopped at a Meijer's when we were in the US. Chicken thighs were on sale for 79 cents a pound so I picked up two family packages each containing ten pieces. The packages had been froze so were not suitable for refreezing. I decided to let them thaw in the fridge, use one package for a meal and pre-cooking and use the other package to can the meat and make stock.

Home Canned Chicken

Home canned chicken is ideal for making chicken salad and mixing with mayonnaise for sandwiches but it can be used for so much more. I like using the smaller 250 ml wide mouth jars for canning chicken. It's the perfect size for many uses. The yield from ten chicken thighs was seven lovely looking jars of canned chicken. The total cost of the canned chicken was $4.21 so cost per 250 jar is 60 cents.

I roasted the bones then added them to the remaining cooking liquid along with onion, carrot and celery for stock. I'll be defatting the stock so it won't be ready for canning until tomorrow. My basic chicken stock recipe can be found here. Factoring in the stock that should yield about 7 - 500 ml jars the overall cost for both products will be quite inexpensive.

Canning Chicken

Boil chicken until it is about ⅔ done. Remove the skin and cut meat from the bone. Cut the meat into smaller pieces. Pack the hot chicken into hot jars leaving 1 - inch headspace. Add ¼ tsp salt per 250 ml jar (optional). Ladle the hot cooking liquid over the chicken leaving 1 - inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and wipe rims. Adjust two piece lids. Process 1 hour and 15 minutes for 250 or 500 ml jars at 10 pounds pressure.