So folks love to talk about how full of flavour free range chicken is, and if you butcher young birds in tractors that are moved daily, you get full flavour young tender well treated chicken..

But what do you do with the three to six year old birds.. you can roast-simmer and crock pot them forever, good broth shoe tough meat..

There is one way to save the meat… butcher, age in very lightly salted water in the fridge 3 days and then pressure can it.. bone in or bone out.

depending on what the part is..

I never! cook the chicken ahead..  when it comes to taking old chicken and turning it into nicely pressure canned meat.. IMHO it must be done cold pack..

skinless, nothing but chicken.. an if you want a pinch of salt and then follow your pressure canner rules for your area, sea level and what size of jar you are using.

The end result.. outstanding.. the bone in thighs and legs are perfect to pull the meat and use in stir-fry or for mixed in rice or chopped and used for on salads and more.

The white meat is perfect for soups, stews and anything else you can think of.. This is my most proven way to take old laying hens, and or old roosters and turning them into very safe, shelf-stable tender meat to be used in future meals.

As you can see that I only did pints because we are after all only a two adult person household.. hope that this saves you some time in the future when you have someone tell you that either a) wow, this meat is so tough.. and or b) it made good broth but the meat is pretty much unusable.