Canning for the Pantry

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My selection of convenience home canned meals was running low. I decided to can chicken cacciatore. Since I didn’t have a recipe I ended up with more ingredients than I needed and I so I used the rest to make soup and can that. In all I ended up with 14 jars of yummy home canned easy to prepare food.

My plan was to make chicken cacciatore and I started out with 12lbs of chicken, 2 - 67 oz. jars of Prego spaghetti sauce, 3 large onions, 3 green peppers, 2 ½ quarts of chicken broth and about 15 cloves of pressed garlic.

The picture shows everything but the chicken broth…
 


I poured both jars of spaghetti sauce into my 8 quart stock pot and added 2 cups of chicken broth so the sauce was not too thick.

While my sauce was heating up I put 7 quart jars in my sink and filled them with boiling water, I put my canner on the stove and let that heat up and got my lids soaking in hot water. Now I was ready to start filling up my jars.

I filled about half the jar with the veggies and then poured a little spaghetti sauce over them (because the sauce is thick I wanted to make sure that it covered the veggies and there were no air pockets.
 
 



Then I put the chicken meat (boneless thighs, not cut up) on top of the veggies/sauce. I added more sauce to cover it all.
 
 


Wiped the rims clean, put on a lid and ring and set in the canner and proceeded to do this to the next 6 jars.

I canned this at 10lbs of pressure for 90 minutes. This can NOT be done in a water bath. It must be pressure canned.

All the jars sealed which made me very happy!!
 
A few days later I used one jar to make a small meal for hubby to take to work. I poured the contents of the jar into a sauce pan and let it heat up. I kept it warm while I cooked a bit of spaghetti. It tasted delicious!!
 




When I had filled all of my jars I still had about 8 cups of sauce left, 5lbs of chicken and lots of veggies. So I decided to make the rest of it into soup. I added 2 quarts of chicken stock, cut up the remaining chicken and added it, plus added all the remaining veggies. I brought this to a boil and let is simmer while I waited for my canner to finish with the chicken cacciatore.

I filled another 7 jars with boiling water and when the chicken cacciatore was done I canned the soup. I had 7 quarts of soup I was able to can and all those jars sealed as well. As far as the picture is concerned the jars look about the same. I made sure to label them before storing so I would know which was which.
 



But in all it was a productive day in the kitchen and I ended up with 14 jars of convenience food in my cupboard!

 
 

Comments

  1. CherylJune 17, 2014 at 7:11 AM

    It all looks so good. I need to do more of this type of canning. I want to get some ideas together as the garden ripens to have some convenience foods in my canning list this year.

    Have a great week.
    Cheryl

    ReplyDelete
  2. MonicaJune 17, 2014 at 7:38 AM

    Thanks Crystal. This is a great idea. As soon as I get my canner out and running I will do this one. I am notorious at forgetting to lay out meat for dinner. I always need convienence food. By the way, LOVE your new look! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 17, 2014 at 7:47 AM

    Canning chicken cacciatore! That's a fantastic idea!! Thank you for sharing this recipe. I've been looking for something different to have on hand as a home-canned convenience food.

    ReplyDelete
  4. SharonRJune 17, 2014 at 10:05 AM

    You're so clever. Thanks for this advice.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJune 22, 2014 at 2:29 PM

    I am looking at this on my Kindle fire and it looks like you used mushrooms as well. Is that so? And if it is how many did you use. It looks delicious and I want to make this recipe as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalJune 22, 2014 at 2:55 PM

      I really did not measure... I used probably 8 to 10 oz? The ones that did not get used for the chicken cacciatore were put in the soup.

      Delete
  6. AnonymousJuly 31, 2015 at 3:20 PM

    can i do the same procedure with a beef stew

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownMay 28, 2016 at 8:49 PM

    Your post is very helpful, thank you. Home canning is an almost lost art that our grandparents used to practice a lot in order to store foods over the winter. With the development of food commerce and women emancipation, canning at home was not a necessity anymore which is why it remained something people in the past used to do. See more http://survival-mastery.com/diy/food_preserv/home-canning-recipes.html

    ReplyDelete

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