How to Can Chicken Broth

If you’re a fan of using up every part of your ingredients, then you will love knowing how to can chicken broth. 

Making chicken broth is a great way to get one more use out of the chicken carcasses left over from making a few big meals or canning chicken. 

You can make broth from a whole chicken in your slow cooker, too, and it’s delicious. But in this case, we’re just going to use the leftovers from deboning. Since making chicken broth is a component of canning chicken at home, you may use different chicken parts at different times.

I recently did this mainly with leg and thigh bones. You don’t have to use whole chickens. I remember, though, when I was a kid, and we processed chickens (usually old, retired hens), my mom used to can breasts and leg quarters separately, then boil the carcass with the wings still attached in huge pots. Then we’d debone everything and can meaty chicken broth. 

That broth was excellent for making chicken soup or chicken gravy. 

I also use chicken broth without the meat often for recipes like butternut squash soup, and I like to cook rice in it too. 

Getting Started 

The ingredients (other than chicken) are going to be very flexible here. 

I like to start with salt, pepper, onions, celery, and carrots. I also like to add garlic, but I have to be careful, because my kids don’t love that one. 

You’ll also need canning supplies 

• A pressure canner. My default is the Presto 0 16 quart canner, because it’s simplest to use. The newer canners are also simple but have an added pressure gauge. I like them, but I’ll be honest: I don’t love how the price point keeps going up, and the canners keep getting thinner. You have to spend an arm and a leg to get a truly nice canner now. But in the end, it’s an investment that pays for itself. Still, scanning vintage stores and thrift shops for older canners is a great hobby if you’re in the market for a new (to you) canner!
• Canning jars – pints or quarts work well, and I recommend small mouth. Since you’re canning liquid and small mouths seal more securely, it makes sense. 
• Lids and rings. If you’re using new jars, they likely came with a set of lids and rings to go with them. If not, you probably have rings from previous uses and only need lids. Either way, they’re easy to order. 

If you’re new to canning and disappointed that chicken broth isn’t on the list of water bath canning-safe foods, let me just encourage you that using a pressure canner is not complicated at all, and they have built-in safeties. In all the years I’ve been canning, and helped friends with their canning, I’ve only seen a safety seal blow once. 

It was my Mom’s. Apparently the pressure release valve got clogged, so once it reached pressure and didn’t start releasing, the rubber seal popped. It got water all over the stove. The end. We cleaned the valve and put the seal back in, and I think my sister-in-law has that canner now. 

You can read all about using a pressure canner here. 

How to Can Chicken Broth

Pile your chicken bones, carcasses, etc., in a large stock pot. In the pictures you see, I’m using my 16-quart water bath canning kettle. 

In that pot, add 3-4 stalks of celery, a quartered onion, a few carrots, snapped in half, and a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper (we’ll get to specific measurements in the recipe card below). 

Fill the kettle with water, and bring it to a boil. 

Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for two hours. 

When it’s done cooking, use a slotted spoon to remove big chunks, then strain the whole kettle through 3-4 layers of cheesecloth. 

After that, you can let the broth cool until the fat solidified to remove it, or you can move straight to canning with the fat. Your call, depending on how you feel about fat. 

To can, fill sterile jars with the broth to about an inch from the rim, make sure the rims are clean and free of debris, then firmly fix the lids and rings on the jars. 

Pressure can be at 10lbs of pressure for 25 minutes for quarts or 20 minutes for pints. 

This is such rewarding work, because you start to see your pantry shelves fill up fast with very little effort on this one!

Scroll down a bit to see the printable recipe card with specific measurements and instructions.

Print