Canning Chicken Meat

[bigredfeather]

The first time we canned chicken, we cooked it first, deboned, then canned. I really didn't care for the mushy texture. It reminded me of tuna. The second time we did it, we deboned it w/out cooking, then presure canned it. It had a much better texture and flavor. IMHO, if you cook it first, you're cooking out a lot of the flavor. We also put the leg/thigh bone in the jar to help make the broth richer. The broth in the jar that results is fabulous. We were getting a whole chicken in a quart. We cut the wings off, as it they really aren't worth canning.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

BRed... did you can the broilers? Those things are horrible canned, due to their age the meat is just mush when it's cooked that long. Old layers are perfect... Mac no need to age the meat is as tender as could be. We have a lot of Amish just south of me and I've had dinners at one of the farms with canned chicken meat... amazingly good. They kill the birds, rinse them off, then right into the cooker. They don't even get soaked. Every fall they replace their layers and about 50 birds get processed and canned.


I love chicken meat in tacos, canned layers would be the ticket.

 

[RoosterGeek]

I've wondered about this same thing. I'm going to be following this thread closely.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Mac,

Please let us know how all this comes out for you because I for one intend to do the same thing so I'd really like to know.

 

[Hucklekree]

I've canned chicken twice. Both times it has been under the direction of a mentor. We simply deboned the chicken, took off all the fat (not that home raised chickens have much), cubed or cut into the size we wanted and then seasoned while quickly browning all four sides. The inside is supposed to be raw. The pressure cooker will cook the meat through. No mushy meat here. Hope that's helpful to someone!

Oh yes and use older chickens for this.

 

[becky3086]

I have canned chicken several times. I also pressure cook mine off the bone (however, I have a small pressure cooker and only do one or two at at time. It takes 25 minutes). Then can it. I have never found it to be mushy. I have also canned leftover turkey chicken etc. Also not mushy.

 

[LittleDarlings]

Definitely interesting stuff! I had read one or two bits about canning chicken, but no where near this depth of info! Thanks for sharing. (Idk if my DH will thank you since that'll be another reason to get MORE chickens...lol)

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Well, we did some today. It was a long day. The processing went well. We processed thirty hens. It was the first time I had processed birds en masse versus the occasional bird or two here or there. We used a 30 gallon stock pot for a scalder and an EZ Plucker that I bought a few weeks ago. It was just my 17 year old son and I, and I think we were done with the processing in about 2.5 hours.

I cleaned out the scalding pot and threw all 30 birds in there to cook. The birds were a little lighter than I thought and dressed out at 2.5 lbs. At that size all 30 fit in the pot with just a little room to spare. It took an hour to bring the pot up to a simmer and then we simmered the birds for an hour. We removed them from the water onto large aluminum cookie sheets, let them cool for a little bit, and deboned them.

It came to 22 lbs of meat which went into 18 quart jars. I figured the quart jars would fit about two pounds of meat, but it it was actually 1.25 pounds per jar. I processed them all at one time in our large pressure canner and finally shut off the propane a couple of hours ago.

I haven't tried any yet, but it looks good... I think a gallon of chicken grease has soaked into my pores and the house smells like a chicken soup factory, so I'll hold off on trying it for a little bit.

As I said, it was a long day (we still have to catch and load up 900 more hens when the truck comes at 9 PM tonight), but we did put up 22 lbs of chicken. It seemed like a lot of work, but then it was just me and one helper. I kept thinking about my grandmother canning 6 or 7 jars at a time on her gas stove in a tiny farmhouse kitchen and was thinking that all in all we did pretty good.

 

[SmokinChick]

Sounds like it worked. Keep us posted on the "mushy" ness of the meat. Congrats to you and the help.

 

[becky3086]

LOl, some of us still put up 6-7 jars on our gas stoves in our little kitchens so yes, you did pretty good .