Canning Chicken and Chicken Broth

I have been wanting to can some chicken for my food storage. Last year I purchased Hormel in a can from the store. I hated it - it was awful. I gave it all away to the local food pantries. I wish I had only purchased 1 can and tried it, it would have saved me a lot of money.

This week Albertson's had chicken on sale for $1.49 per pound. That was the best price I've seen for a long time. I didn't look at the ad very well, because I thought it was boneless, skinless chicken breasts. However, it was bone-in and had skin. I thought, "Oh well"....it isn't too much work to take the skin off and de-bone the breasts. I purchased them, brought them home and decided to get busy canning them.

After I de-boned and de-skinned them, I cut the breast up and put in clean pint jars.

I added 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each jar. Ran a knife down the sides to release any air bubbles. Wiped the rims and added canning lids that were boiled for 2 minutes. 

I didn't need to  pre-cook the chicken or add any water. It would be really easy with boneless/skinless breast. But, it worked with a little more effort and it was a great price.

Process in a pressure cooking canner. My pressure cooker holds 8 pints and that is how many I filled for

$ 18.27

That would be $2.28 per pint. These are the pints processed. All of them sealed and look great. Chicken broth in the jars naturally forms as they process.

I am going to taste a bottle first, before I decide to process more. I'd like to get at least 50 canned in my food storage. That is 1 jar per week for 1 year - which is probably enough for the 2 of us.

Process in a Pressure cooking canner.

10 pounds pressure

After it starts to jiggle. Process:

Pints 75 minutes

Quarts 90 minutes.

Well, I had all of those bones left over from the chicken breasts. I did my best to get all the meat off of them. I decided to go ahead and cook the bones and make chicken broth. I put them all in my stock pot, with enough water to cover the breasts. I added a cut up onion, cut up carrots, cut up celery and salt - for a yummy tasting broth.

After it was cooked, I started to remove all of the chicken left on the breast bones.

It was a lot of work to clean off the bones. (It probably would have been better to have the veggies in a bag made out of cheese cloth - that way I wouldn't have to pick out the veggies from the meat and bones - Oh, well you learn as you go).

 I had enough chicken for two pots of chicken noodle soup - or something else needing chicken. I put them in a freezer bag and froze the meat for this fall (or sooner).

 I had a lot of chicken broth too. It tasted really yummy.

I had an idea to see if I could "can" chicken broth. I searched the Internet and you can! Woot! ( I LOVE THE INTERNET!!!!)

Since I had the jars already - I decided to process them for my food storage.

I decided since I was running out of day light, I would put it in the fridge overnight and let the fat harden.

In the morning I skimmed off all of the fat. The floaty things in the picture are celery leaves - but they skimmed out of the broth before I re-heated the broth.

I added the hot broth to some clean pint jars, wiped the rim, added lids that had been boiled for 2 minutes and processed them in my Pressure Cooking Canner.

The broth processes:

10 pounds pressure

After it starts to jiggle

process for 20 minutes for pints,

25 minutes for quarts.

They look great - and all natural - or organic. Don't you love that??

OK... Now for $18.27 I have:

8 pints of chicken

8 pints of chicken broth (plus 2 jars in the freezer -not enough to process another batch)

2 bags of chicken for soup.

NOT TO BAD... I like it! Well, since there isn't any preservatives - isn't that organic/all natural. I vote yes! and HEALTHY! (AND FRUGAL - not wasting anything)

I also finished canning 13 pints of green beans today. My first huge picking - enough to can.

I've been busy, busy, busy... I am feeling the need to prepare and fill my storage. I always feel this way in the fall... to exhaustion :-D

Happy canning!!

Update: I love the chicken and the broth. Yum!

 I used the broth in the TGIF Cream of Broccoli soup and it was great!

I've also used the canned chicken in my Chicken Roll Up recipe. Yum!

I'm loving it and know there will be no problem eating at least 1 per week to rotate my storage. It's great to feel prepared with good protein instead of only getting it from beans. Yea for Chicken too!

OH and I also purchased boneless skinless breasts. It was lots easier to can - but I didn't get broth. So, it's a catch 20/20.. More work to get broth - but oooooh so delicious. I think it will depend on the good deals I can find when they are on sale. The send canning of chicken - it was on sale for $1.99 for boneless/skinless. Great deal! I'm very happy to have canned my own chicken. Much better then store brands - and oh, so easy!