Canning cubed chicken meat?

[smith2]

I have been canning chicken for the past 2 days. I just finished the last cooker load. I can some of mine raw and some of it cooked. I basically do the following steps:
1) skin the birds when I am going to can--the older the bird the better it really is for canning; young ones tend to turn into mush in the canner; I personally don't use the wings or the gut parts (heart, gizzard, livers).
2) cut off the best parts of the meat--breast, legs, and thighs; use a very sharp knife and cutting board
3) brine these raw parts overnight in ice water
4) take the remaining bony parts add some water and pressure cook them in a pressure pan--15 # pressure for 30 minutes
5) cool the bony parts and take all the small bits of meat off the bones; watch out for bones in the bony meat, because it is really hard to find all the little bones in that meat when it is warm and slick.
6) can the best parts raw, tightly packed in quarts or pints, adding a little of the broth from the bone meat--quarts 10# for 1.5 hr.; pints 10# for 1.25 hr.
7) can the bone meat tightly packed in pints 10# for 1.15 min.; It doesn't take quite as long as it has already been cooked; it comes out of the jar kind of mushy, but my DH and DS eat this on bread or crackers like potted meat. I also make chicken salad out of it. 8) can the rest of the broth from the bone meat in quarts or pints--10# 30 for pints, 35 for quarts.

Slow cool canned meat or meats in liquids or you get boil over in the canner and then the jars look funny.

Hope this helps. I have been canning meats for years, and it is so easy to come home from work and mix up a casserole, salad, or soup without having to do all the prep. work or worry about what is thawed out when I am already tired from a long day at school.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
You're right to be careful, but it doesn't really depend on the recipe. The recipe won't alter the temp and pressure the food reaches. If a food canned at X pressure for X minutes is safe, it will be safe regardless of what seasonings, vegetables, etc., you might add. You just go with the instructions for the longest-time ingredient. That might not be worded clearly, so I'll use an example.

Say you want to can a stew containing chicken, potatoes, carrots, green beans, and onions. You look up the instructions for each ingredient. Which requires the longest time, and highest pressure? That's what you use for that recipe. The meat's always going to be the longest cooking/highest pressure ingredient, as far as I know, but it wouldn't hurt to check if you aren't sure.

So you can use grandma's recipe for chili, or whatever, and pressure can it, (as far as ingredients go, anyway, the cooking instructions of course, will be for pressure canning) just follow that basic rule for the processing. If you can a recipe that calls for more than one kind of meat, choose the processing instructions for the one that takes the most intensive processing.

I've canned chicken, it's very good! Much better than the store bought canned chicken. I canned cut-up chickens, with the bones, but I won't next time. The bones get crumbly when pressure canned. So next time, I'll de-bone breasts and thighs, can those, and freeze the wings and legs and backs to cook in the crock pot. Then I'll have boneless canned meat for stir-fry or tacos, or whatever.

I wouldn't can noodles in anything, (tried that) they tend to turn to mush, when pressure canned. But you could can the rest of the soup recipe, and cook the noodles in it when you heat it up. Noodles cook fast.

 

[smith2]

Dancing Bear, I too did my first canned chicken bones and all, and for some reason the bones getting yucky is worse when the meat is with them. I think the bones must pull water from the meat into the bone and make it yucky. I also never did that again. Separating meat from bone is best.

 

[Kim_NC]

I've canned all kinds of meat, including chicken, for decades. We love having canned chicken and stock on the pantry shelves - perfect for easy meat pies, casseroles, soups/stews, chicken & gravy, tacos or quesadillas, chicken salad, etc.

Following the USDA guidelines on the NCHFP website (already linked above) or in the Ball Blue Book is the safest bet. And yes, if canning mixed items, use the longest required processing time among the various ingredients.

I also can chicken boneless. I don't like having to pick the bones out when ready to use it. And the bones do change texture and get kinda yucky. Bones also take-up jar space, which then means more shelf space is required too.

I prefer to raw pack cubes or chunks of the deboned meat. (I tend to freeze some breast meat separately for a few favorite all-white-meat recipes.)

For stock:
I roast the bones along with some onions, carrot and celery until a bit browned. Then cover that all with water and cook on the back of the stove until the meat falls of the bones. Then debone, remove the veggies, and can the stock. I like to have some stock canned with meat, and some jars of just strained stock. I use the plain stock in recipes, for cooking dry beans, etc. A side note about the stock with meat - I process those jars the 90 minutes required for meat, no matter how little it is. Better safe than sorry.

 

[kota1369]

When I was a kid grandma used to can fried chicken. I remember it being heavenly. Unfortunately, no one seems to have any idea how she did it.

 

[slaghunter]

You can use a water bath to can meat. I have used it for years to do deer. It does take like 3 hours though. I got a recipe off the internet for "canned venison". I'm sure it would work for chicken also. I'm looking forward to getting a pressure cooker though, so much faster. Just thought I would let you know that it is possible with out a pressure cooker.