Canning Turkey

Continuing on the theme of canned meat, let's talk turkey. During parts of November and December, turkey is usually marked way down as a means of getting people into the stores to spend more money. Our local Meijer store currently has whole frozen store brand turkeys 50% off - 54 cents a pound. That's some very cheap protein.

Last year, I cooked 3 extra turkeys in the week of Thanksgiving & after. One was for our family Thanksgiving dinner, one was for us to pick at when eating leftovers. The final 2 were specifically to can. After a few days, there were a few leftovers and bones left from the 2 that were eaten. I made bone broth with the bones, strained it and added back the leftovers. This was used for soups, etc.

The 2 birds purchased to can were treated differently. Rather than fully cooking them, I cooked for between 1/2 & 2/3rds of the total time. I removed as much meat as possible from the bones & put it in 2 covered dishes in the fridge. One contained the dark meat and the other the white meat. Then I made bone broth out of the 2 carcasses in 2 large crock pots. The broth cooked overnight. The next day, after it had cooled, I strained the broth & picked out any bits of meat. All the white meat went into a pot with a little over 1/2 of the broth. I brought it to a boil & cooked for about 5 minutes to heat through. Then I packed the jars with the meat & filled with the hot broth. I processed in pint & quart jars according to my Ball Canning book. Then I repeated the process with the dark meat and remaining broth. Finally, I canned the left over broth. See my previous post regarding my epic fail with the 1/2 pint jars of broth.

The turkey turned out beautifully. There were a number of Quart jars with large chunks of breast meat. We even used one of them for sandwiches. After we boiled the meat for 10 minutes, we drained & reserved the broth for other use. The turkey was moist and fresh tasting. We've made Turkey Tetrazinni, turkey & dumplings, etc.with most of the jars. The only 2 jars I have left have much smaller pieces. And the fat around the top comes from cooking the turkey with butter and not scooping it all off.

 2013 canned chunky all white turkey

Last week, we bought a turkey to use for several meals. Then Papa went out of town the same day I cooked it. There was way too much turkey for me to eat so I canned the leftovers. Because the meat was thoroughly cooked before canning, it was a little more shredded than last year. It will still work fine.

 2014 canned turkey - mixed light & dark meat

So go ahead, get adventurous and try something new. Look for deals and take advantage so you can save some money for other things.

God is good. Blessings from our tiny farm.

Mare