Canning Turkey

In our area, many grocery stores offer fantastic deals on turkeys around Thanksgiving and Christmas. With the rising cost of groceries, this is often the most affordable meat we can find. Even though turkey is not our family's favorite meal, we really can't pass up the great prices that are offered. Thus, each year, we pick up some very affordable meat and put it in the freezer.

This past fall, we ended up with two turkeys. We hadn't used up the two turkeys from the prior season, so it was past time for us to do something with them. One way we all enjoy turkey is in a pot pie, so I looked online to find a pot pie filling that could be canned. There were many recipes. Some called for ClearJel, some called for white wine, some called for specialty items. We ended up choosing a recipe that called for common items we typically have on hand.

The recipe we used was from Farmhouse Harvest, though we found a similar recipe from SBcanning.com. 

A friend was coming over to can with me, so I decided to take out two turkeys. I wanted to be sure we had enough jars each for a few meals and for some turkey broth as well. How much can you get out of a turkey? It will depend on the size of the turkey, but read on to see  what two 15 pound turkeys yielded for us.

Since I work, we chose to spread out our prep time and canning over several days throughout the week.

Here is the week's schedule we followed:

Monday - Roast the two turkeys while working from home. Put them in the refrigerator to use on Tuesday.

Tuesday - Work in the morning. In the afternoon, pull the meat from the turkeys, chop the vegetables, and can the turkey pot pie filling.

Wednesday - Work all day.

Thursday - Pull the remaining meat from the carcasses in the early morning. Cover the carcasses with water in a pot (it took two stock pots because we had two turkeys). Let the bones cook in water with spices and vegetables to create broth while working from home. In the afternoon, strain the bones and vegetables out of the broth, prep the canner, sterilize the jars, and heat the meat and broth together. Can the meat in broth. Put the second pot of broth in the refrigerator to can later.

Friday - Work all day.

Saturday - Take out the broth to heat, prep the canner, and sterilize the jars. Can the remaining broth.

Two 15 pound turkeys yielded:

14 quarts of turkey pot pie filling. We canned 12 1/2 (that is what would fit in our two canners) and had 1 1/2 left to make into pies that night. 

Each quart of canned pot pie filling is enough to make one pot pie. Thus we have enough for 12 full pies and two personal sized pies.

12 pints of turkey in broth. We canned ten pints (that is what fit in the canner). We put the remaining quart in the refrigerator to use for soup. 

The meat in broth can be used as a base for soup, more pot pie filling, or any other meal that you want to make with your turkey.

5 1/2 quarts of turkey broth. The last pot of broth had exactly 5 1/2 quarts, which all fit in the canner. 

The broth can be used as a base for soup, in recipes that call for broth, or to drink.

Summary:

Cooking down and utilizing the whole turkey will yield several meals. Canning the turkey allows you to spread out these meals and gives you pre-prepared bases from which to create several meal options. We were so pleased with the amount of items we canned from these two turkeys!