Chicken Soup Pressure Canning Recipe
11. March 2021
Our friend and guest blogger Chez LaRae worked up this basic chicken soup pressure canning recipe. This canning recipe will make weekday meal nights a snap. You can follow LaRae’s amazing food adventures on Instagram and her website. LaRae is a self-taught baker, cooking and baking instructor, recipe developer, and an editor at @thefeedfeed. See LaRae's other recipe guest blog posts.
Our homemade chicken soup is a blank canvas for delicious, easy weeknight meals. Open a jar and add rice, pasta, dumplings, orzo, or fresh veggies from your garden. This basic chicken soup can be the beginning of so many different flavor profiles. There have been many busy weeknights when they have solved my dinner dilemmas. Start planning your canning project now as comforting soup awaits you.
Our Farmer’s Market Gingham rectangle canning labels are perfect for quart jars of soup. There’s plenty of room to add an ingredient list with directions on what else can be added to the soup after opening the jar.
This recipe uses a pressure canner. It is an excellent project for people interested in beginning their pressure canning journey or seasoned canners alike. Please note that pressure canning is very precise. Our recipe is trusted and slightly modified from Ball Canning’s “Complete Book of Home Preserving”. Please follow the canning instructions carefully and do not add additional ingredients or alter the recipe for safety reasons. Your creative flavor touches can be added after opening your jars upon serving.
Pressure Canning Chicken Soup
Recipe adapted from “Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving”
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Before you begin:
You must use a pressure canner for this recipe. You cannot use a boiling water canner or a pressure cooker. I bought my 23-quart Presto pressure canner for around $100 and it has been a wonderful, reliable workhorse for many years.
Canning method: Pressure Canning
Experience Level: Advanced
Yield: Makes about 8 pint jars or 4 quart jars
- 16 cups chicken stock or bone broth (store bought or homemade)
- 3 cups cooked chicken cut into small, uniform pieces*
- 1 ½ cups diced celery
- 1 ½ cups diced carrots
- 1 cup diced onion
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- Salt and white pepper to taste
- 3 chicken bouillon cubes (optional)
* NOTE: You can boil or cook chicken in an pressure cooker or instant pot. These 3 methods would yield extra broth that can be used for the recipe. You can also bake the chicken, but this would not yield much broth at all.
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Prepare weighted gauge pressure canner, jars and lids according to manufacturer's instructions.
In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine chicken stock, chicken, celery, carrots, onions, bay leaves, and dried basil. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and boil gently for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add bouillon cubes if using. Remove bay leaves.
Ladle hot soup into hot jars, leave 1-inch headspace. Tamp the mixture down using an air bubble remover tool or wooden skewer and add additional broth if necessary to maintain the 1-inch of headspace. Wipe jar rims with a moistened towel and screw on lids to fingertip-tight.
Place jars in pressure canner. Adjust water level, lock lid, and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Vent steam for 10 minutes, then close vent. Continue heating to achieve 10 lbs of pressure. Process pint jars for 75 minutes, quart jars for 90 minutes. Carefully monitor your dial the entire time. If the reading dips below 10 pounds you must get your reading back up to 10 pounds and start your timer to zero again.
Turn off heat. Let pressure return to zero naturally. Wait 2 minutes longer, then open vent. Remove canner lid. Wait 10 minutes, then remove jars onto a towel placed on your counter. Allow jars to cool completely undisturbed.
After 24 hours, check lids for seal. Remove screw bands and check seals. Wash jars with warm, soapy water. Apply CanningCrafts’ canning labels to jars.
To serve, heat soup with your favorite add-ins (cooked rice, cooked pasta, dumplings, orzo, etc.) for a heartier meal.
Jars are shelf-stable for up to one year. Jars that have not sealed should be refrigerated immediately and contents eaten within a week.
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Need a custom canning label that has room for ingredients and cooking directions? Shop our rectangle canning labels to decorate your soup jars for gift giving.
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Comments (17)
I absolutely love your recipes especially canning ideas!
I’m new to canning but I grew up with my mom canning non-stop all summer long.
I have a question; when pressure canning, if the psi is to be at 10lbs and the dial goes ip to 11 or 12 is that ok? Or does it have to stay right at 10lbs the whole time? I am thinking if the pressure goes up you can adjust and continue with the time but if the dial goes under the psi you have to start over? Am I correct?
Hi Janelle,
Yes, if the gauge goes below the recommended psi, you will need to restart your timing to correctly process for safety reasons.
You need to regulate the pressure at or even slightly above the recommended psi. If you have a large or sudden increase in the psi, you risk losing liquids from your jars (siphoning). Sometimes the loss in liquid can prevent the jar from sealing due to residue collecting under the lid when liquids are forced out. If the jars do produce a good seal, they are safe to eat, but the food may become discolored if it sits above the water line in the jar. So the lifespan of the jar & quality of food will shorten, so eat those jars first. If you have A LOT of liquid lost during canning (less than half of the jar), that could be a safety issue, so break the seal & store in the fridge & eat soon.
Liquid loss during canning can also be the result of overfilling jars, not de-bubbling, or incorrect cooling of jars.
Have Fun Canning!
Alison
CanningCrafts
Hello! How many quart jars does this recipe fill? Thank you. Looks delicious and I’ve been looking for a recipe.
Tara,
This recipe makes about 8 pint jars or 4 quart jars.
Alison
CanningCrafts
Love reading all your shared information!
Hello,
When making the chicken soup canner recipe, how did you prepare your chicken? I will be starting with freshly butchered chickens. I want to use the broth the chicken is cooked in towards the 16 cups of chx stock the recipe calls for. Do you recommend boiling the chicken or baking it or how? Please share your recommendations on this.
Thanks
Jolene,
Thank you for this question. If you would like broth from your chicken, I would suggest boiling, using a pressure cooker or using an instant pot. These three methods would each yield a nice amount of broth from the chicken. I baked my chicken which did not yield much broth at all.
Thanks!
Alison
CanningCrafts
I don’t want mushy vegetables. And can I add potatoes uncooked. Will pressure cooker cook the vegetables
Robin,
I would suggest reading our other blog post on soup canning recipes if you want to safely modify pressure canned soup recipes:
https://canningcrafts.com/blogs/news/pressure-canning-soup-recipes
There are a few resources in the post on following the USDA and National Center for Home Food Preservation’s guidelines on canning soups.
Vegetables should be prepared and cooked per the USDA’s guidelines on “Hot Packing”. Potatoes need cooked a few minutes before canning.
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can4_vegetable.html#gsc.tab=0
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_04/potato_white.html
Thanks!
Alison
CanningCrafts
Hi I pressure canned my first batch of chicken soup and the taste and texture of the chicken is off putting. My hubby said it tasted like cat food!! Lol what did I do wrong?
Can you make this 1/2 gallon jars
Hi Margaret,
No, this recipe should not be canned in half gallon jars. Please only use the quarts or pints called for in the recipe. The USDA does not have any testing for half gallon jars other than very acidic fruit juices (apple & grape juice only) that are canned in a boing water bath. So it would not be safe to pressure can soup in the half gallons.
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/food/canning/canning-tips/33half-gallon-jars.html
Alison
CanningCrafts
I have canned for years? Are the veggies in the soup not mush? I only can green beans 25 minutes.
Frances,
Veggies will be softer when pressure canned compared to cooking fresh. The longer processing time in this recipe is to safely can the chicken. Individually canned veggies would require a much shorter processing time. You could cut your carrots in bigger pieces too. Some people like al dente veggies & other don’t though.
Alison
CanningCrafts
Your 4 quart chicken soup recipe calls for 16 cups of chicken stock, and I believe that will fill the jars up all by itself.
Ed,
Most store bought containers of broth come in 4 cup servings. So this recipe takes that into consideration. And boiling the ingredients for 30 minutes will result in losing some of that volume. But you will most likely have some leftover broth. It’s better to have some leftover broth instead of not enough :)
Alison
CanningCrafts