Canned Chicken Canning

Preserving Poultry Parts

The price of food just keeps climbing. As I write this ground beef is running $2.99 per pound. Bone-in sliced half pork loin is $1.68 per pound. Whole fryer chickens are $1.48 per pound.

So, when I stumbled upon chicken leg-quarters for $0.49 per pound I refused to pass it up. I brought home two 10 pound bags.

There are those who will snurl their noses up at the bags of chicken leg-quarters. That’s fine. It leaves more for the rest of us. My freezer is already full so I would be getting the canners out.

I have four pressure canners. One is a Presto. It is the lightest and newest chronologically, shown on the left below. Next in line is a National ____ quart, on the right is my first pressure canner, a National ___ quart. In the middle is my latest purchase but my oldest canner, a National 21 quart.

The three older canners all came with pressure guages. The idea behind the guages is to maintain the correct internal pressure by monitoring the pressure registered on the guage. So, if your area requires you to maintain 11 pounds of pressure for 75 minutes, you have to watch the guage, and adjust the heat slowly to maintain that 11 pounds of pressure.

It is a pain in the hind end to do.

So, like many home canners, I transitioned my pressure canners from guage to weighted jiggler. This allows you to listen to the sound of the ch-ch-ch of the weighted jiggler to know that the correct pressure is maintained.

Deboning the chicken is also a pain, but very much worth it.

I put the bones in the imitation Instapot, along witih onion, carrot, and celery to make a nice stock.

All-in-all, I ended up with 10 pints of chicken meat (two servings per pint), two quarts of stock, and some chicken stock fat to flavor soups. So, each each item adds only $0.75 per meal.