Paleo Canning - Chicken Prep

This weekend I came up with my Paleo menu for the week and went shopping with the hubby for a few  essential items (ok, a shopping basket full of essential items).  While we were out I picked up two whole chickens and brought them home. I wanted to make some homemade shredded chicken and with the price of canned chicken, I thought I would try making some myself.

I started by washing the chickens and putting them in my large canning pot. I wanted the chicken to have some flavor, so I quartered two onions and put those in the pot and then filled the water up over the chicken. I finished the seasoning with some garlic powder and poultry seasoning. Then I heated the water and boiled the chicken for about 2 hours. In the end, two beautiful little chickens, about 5.5 lbs each.

Once the chicken is cooled, then you can go ahead and pick the bones clean. I have experience cleaning poultry because I would help my Grandmother clean the turkey after thanksgiving dinner. If you don't have experience, that's ok. You will be able to feel the difference between the meat and the fat. Get rid of as much of the fat as you can, and then you will end up with something like this:

I got one large bowl of chicken from each bird. I mix light and dark meat because I like both, and for Paleo cooking, you don't need to be afraid of the fat. Once I had the birds cleaned, I chopped up the chicken and divided it. Each bird ended up giving me about 5 cups of chopped chicken. I decided to divide this into four equal parts and then put it in bags to freeze. If you are the kind of person who only likes white meat, you can do this with chicken breast, but it may be a little pricey.

I said that this post was about canning, and it is. I was looking and looking at the broth in the pot after I pulled the chicken out and decided that it couldn't go to waste, so I canned it.

 

I followed the same steps that I used to can my soup in an earlier blog post, Paleo Canning - Gazinta Soup.

From two chickens, and a little time, I ended up with 16 pints of Chicken broth that I can keep in my pantry, and 8 bags of shredded chicken that I froze. When I was at the store, I saw that a can of chicken broth costs $1.25 to $1.50 and a can of chicken in water is about $2.25 to purchase ready made (that is for a 10 oz can which has 2 ounces of water in it). This means that I spent $14 and some time to get almost $40 worth of food, and I know that what I made doesn't have any added sodium, and is much healthier.

I could have taken the chicken that I froze and canned it in the broth that I just made, and both would have been shelf stable. I may do that at some point, but I like to freeze things that I will use within 2 months time, and can things that will take me longer to use.

It is getting late for tonight, but I do want to let you know that I have some new recipes coming this week including Apple/Banana Breakfast Souffle and Blueberry Bites. The recipes sound delicious so I hope to be posting them soon.