How to Pressure Can Chicken in Canada (Bernardin Method)

Pressure-canned chicken is the most useful low-acid preserve in a Canadian pantry. A jar opens like a head-start meal — pre-cooked, shelf-stable, ready to drop into soup, casserole, salad, or rice in 5 minutes. Hunters, homesteaders, and meal-preppers all converge on this technique.

This is a pressure-canning recipe. Pressure canning is the only safe home method for chicken and all low-acid foods. Water-bath canning will not destroy botulism spores. There is no exception, no shortcut, no Instant Pot workaround.

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Before you start — the safety rules

1. Use a genuine pressure canner. Presto 23-quart, All American 921, or another tested model. See our pressure canner guide. Pressure cookers and Instant Pots are NOT pressure canners.
2. 10 PSI minimum at sea level. Higher PSI at altitude — see the altitude section below.
3. 90 minutes for 1 L jars; 75 minutes for 500 mL. These are the Bernardin-tested times; verify against your edition before starting.
4. Vent the canner 10 full minutes before applying the regulator. This is the most-skipped safety step and the one that causes botulism failures.
5. Cool the canner naturally — never force-cool with cold water.

If any of these rules feel like overkill, stop and read the pressure canning pillar before going further. This is the recipe where botulism is the real risk.

What you need

• 2-3 kg fresh chicken — yields 4-6 × 1 L jars or 8-12 × 500 mL jars
• Optional: pickling salt (non-iodized) — 1 tsp per 1 L jar, ½ tsp per 500 mL
• Optional: hot chicken broth or water for hot-pack
• Bernardin 1 L or 500 mL wide-mouth jars — wide-mouth is much easier for packing meat
• Fresh SNAP lids and bands
• Pressure canner (Presto, All American, or equivalent)
• Standard canning kit — jar lifter, headspace tool, funnel, large pot for hot-pack option, sharp knife, cutting board

Method (raw pack — simpler and standard)

Step 1: Prep the chicken

1. Trim chicken. Remove skin (skin tends to detach during processing and float on top), large fat deposits, and any bone fragments. Leave smaller bones in for flavour if doing bone-in.
2. Cut into 2-3 cm chunks. Smaller pieces pack denser and process more evenly than large pieces or whole breasts.
3. Keep cold. Don’t let chicken sit at room temperature longer than 30 minutes total during prep.

Step 2: Prepare jars and canner

1. Wash jars in hot soapy water. Rinse. Keep hot in the dishwasher or in a pot of simmering water until packing.
2. Add 5-7 cm of water to the pressure canner with the rack inside. Heat to a gentle simmer.
3. Have fresh SNAP lids ready.

Step 3: Pack the jars (raw)

1. Add 1 tsp pickling salt to each 1 L jar (½ tsp for 500 mL) — optional, for flavour only.
2. Pack raw chicken chunks tightly into hot jars, leaving 3 cm (1¼ inch) headspace. This is much more headspace than water-bath canning; do not reduce.
3. Do not add liquid — chicken releases its own juices during processing.
4. Wipe rims with a clean damp cloth.
5. Apply fresh SNAP lids fingertip-tight.

Step 4: Process (the critical step)

1. Load jars into the canner. Water level should be 7-8 cm — NOT covering jars. Pressure canning uses steam, not boiling water.
2. Lock the lid. Heat on high.
3. Vent for 10 full minutes. Steam must flow continuously through the open vent. This expels air from the canner so true steam (not air) builds pressure. Don’t skip this — it’s the most-common safety failure point.
4. Apply the regulator (weight or close the petcock).
5. Bring to 10 PSI at sea level (higher at altitude — see below). The canner will hiss steadily; weighted gauges will jiggle 2-3 times per minute at proper pressure.
6. Start the timer when 10 PSI is reached:
   • 1 L jars: 90 minutes at 10 PSI
   • 500 mL jars: 75 minutes at 10 PSI
7. Adjust heat to maintain pressure. If pressure drops below 10 PSI even briefly, you must restart the timer when it returns. Watch the canner — don’t walk away for the full 90 minutes.

Step 5: Cool and check

1. When the timer ends, turn off heat. Don’t move the canner. Don’t open it.
2. Let pressure drop to zero naturally — about 45-60 minutes. Never force-cool with cold water.
3. Once at zero pressure, remove the weight, wait 10 more minutes, then unlock the lid.
4. Lift jars with the jar lifter. Place on a towel, undisturbed, for 12-24 hours.
5. Check seals — lid concave and immovable when pressed.
6. Label with date. Store.

If a jar doesn’t seal: refrigerate that jar and eat within 2-3 days, or reprocess within 24 hours. Full rule here. Note that low-acid foods have a much shorter “refrigerate and eat” window than acidic foods.

Method variation (hot pack)

If you prefer cleaner jars and a slightly faster cool-down:

1. Pre-cook chicken — simmer chunks in chicken broth or salted water for 5-10 minutes. Don’t fully cook; just partially.
2. Pack hot chicken into hot jars to 3 cm headspace.
3. Pour hot broth or cooking water over chicken to cover, maintaining the 3 cm headspace.
4. Process as for raw pack — 90 minutes for 1 L, 75 minutes for 500 mL at 10 PSI.

Hot pack yields jars with chicken submerged in clear broth (visually nicer). Raw pack yields jars where the chicken is in its own concentrated juices (more flavour-dense). Both are equally safe.

Altitude adjustments

PSI matters, not time. The times stay 90/75 minutes; the pressure changes:

Altitude	Weighted gauge	Dial gauge
0 – 305 m	10 PSI	11 PSI
305 – 610 m	15 PSI	12 PSI
610 – 1,220 m	15 PSI	13 PSI
1,220+ m	15 PSI	14 PSI

Calgary (1,045 m), Edmonton (645 m), Regina (580 m), Saskatoon (482 m) all need adjustment. See our altitude adjustments article for the full Canadian-city list.

Storage

• Cool, dark, dry place at room temperature
• Best quality 12-18 months
• After opening: refrigerate, use within 3-4 days
• Inspect every jar before opening — bulging lid, off smell, foam, or leakage means discard the entire jar without tasting
• A bit of brown discolouration on the meat near the top of the jar is oxidation — safe. A foul smell is not — discard.

How to use canned chicken

• Chicken salad — drain, shred or chop, mix with mayo, celery, grapes, walnuts
• Chicken soup — open jar into hot broth with noodles or rice
• Chicken pot pie filling — drain, mix with frozen vegetables and a quick roux
• Tacos / quesadillas / enchiladas — shred and warm with taco seasoning
• Chicken stroganoff — over rice or noodles
• Curry — chicken is already cooked; add to curry sauce in the last 5 minutes
• Casseroles — replaces the “cook 1 chicken breast” step in most recipes
• Sandwiches — drained shredded chicken on toasted bread with mayo
• Pasta — toss with sauce and grated cheese
• Quick-prep meals for people who don’t always have time to handle raw chicken

Common problems

• Foam in the jars. Normal for raw pack. Doesn’t affect safety. Tastes the same.
• Liquid level dropped (siphoning). Common in pressure canning. As long as seal is intact and at least half the liquid remains, the jar is safe. If less than half remains and chicken is partially exposed, refrigerate and use within a week.
• Chicken turned dark. Iron in your water can react with the meat. Use bottled or filtered water for the canner. Cosmetic only.
• Skin floated to top. Always happens when skin is left on. Trim skin off before packing next batch.
• Jar didn’t seal. The 24-hour rule. Note: low-acid food has a much shorter refrigerator window if not reprocessed.
• Bulging lid weeks later. Discard the entire jar immediately. Do not taste. Do not open. This is the most critical safety check — bulging in pressure-canned meat is a clear botulism warning sign. Wrap the jar in newspaper and dispose. Wash any surface it touched with hot soapy water followed by a 10-minute bleach soak.

Yield expectations

• 2-3 kg fresh chicken → 4-6 × 1 L jars OR 8-12 × 500 mL jars (depending on bone-in vs boneless and density of pack)
• A full canner batch is typically 6-7 × 1 L jars or 14-16 × 500 mL jars

A typical Canadian home-preserving household runs 1-2 chicken-canning sessions per year, putting up 12-24 × 1 L jars. That’s a year’s supply of quick-prep chicken protein.

Why pressure-canned chicken is worth it

• Shelf-stable cooked protein — no freezer space, no thawing, no power-dependent storage
• Costs less than buying canned chicken — 1 kg of chicken thighs from a Canadian grocer is ~$8-12; that’s about 2-3 × 1 L jars at ~$3-5 per jar in ingredient cost
• Use up sale chicken — when grocery chicken is marked down, can it before it expires
• Hunter / homesteader essential — Canadian hunters often pressure-can wild meat (venison, moose, elk) with the same technique
• Quicker than re-thawing frozen chicken — open jar, done

Pressure canning other meats — same rules

The same 90-minute / 75-minute / 10 PSI protocol applies to:

• Beef — chuck, brisket, stew meat (see our canned beef stew article for the recipe with vegetables)
• Pork — shoulder, loin, ham
• Game meat — venison, moose, elk, bear, rabbit
• Fish — salmon, trout, mackerel (specific Bernardin recipe applies; some fish are processed longer)

The technique is identical; the recipe specifics vary by meat. Always use a Bernardin-tested recipe specific to the meat you’re canning.

Next steps

• Best pressure canner in Canada — Presto vs All American — equipment guide
• Pressure canning pillar — the broader method context
• Canning altitude adjustments — required reading for PSI
• How to tell if canned food has gone bad — botulism awareness
• SNAP lid reuse rules — fresh lids every batch
• Coming next: pressure-canned beef stew, pressure-canned beans from dry