Canning Chicken

Two years ago I thought canning chicken was gross.  I was forced into the situation and had to can the chicken whether I wanted to or not.  Over the last two years, I have used the canned chicken in many dishes:  quesedillas, enchiladas, chicken alfredo, and many others.  It is so convenient to just open the jar of chicken, dump it into my pan, add my seasonings, heat it up, and dinner is ready.  I don't have to thaw out chicken or take the time to cook it.  It's been great!

So if you would like to can chicken yourself, here are the steps to take:

 First you have to buy and cut up a lot of chicken.  I purchased 15 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts when they were on sale.  While I cut up the chicken, I cut off excess fat and skin.  You only want to can the good stuff.

 Next you have to wash your jars and lids.  I used pint sized jars.   Each jar holds about a pound of chicken.  The jars should be air dried.  I placed the lids in a pot of hot water and let them sit there until I needed them.

 Fill up each jar to within an inch of the top.  Using a canning funnel is convenient.  It reduces the chance of making a mess on the rim and the sides.  

 After the chicken is in the jars, use a spatula to scrape around the edges.  This helps get out air and packs the chicken in a little more.  You may find you can add more chicken to the jar.  Add about a teaspoon of salt to each jar then wipe the edges clean.  Next you put on the lids that have been sitting in hot water.  Screw on the lid ring until it is firm.  You don't want to make it super tight.

I have a 23-quart pressure cooker and canner.  It's really big and I'm able to put two layers of jars in it to cook at the same time.  Pressure cookers vary in size. Follow the directions on your pressure cooker.  Once my pressure cooker reached 11 pounds of pressure, I had to keep it at that pressure for the next 75 minutes.  When the time was up, I let it cool off before opening the lid. 

 The finished product is a jar of cooked chicken.  The liquid you see in the jar is chicken broth that was created while it cooked.  It doesn't look very appealing in the jar but it tastes great.

  Time for dinner.  I dumped an entire jar into this frying pan.  The meat is cooked and shredded once you break up the chunks.  It is suggested to always re-heat the meat prior to eating it.  

It is time consuming to can chicken; however, it is very convenient to have on hand when trying to cook a decent dinner when you are short on time.