Canning Turkey and Gravy Meal in a Jar

Canning turkey and gravy turns the last of the holiday bird into dinners for the pantry shelf. Shredded turkey, potatoes, and onions go into the jars in a seasoned broth. Open a jar, turn the broth into gravy, and you’ve got hot turkey and gravy on the table in about 15 minutes.

Hot turkey and gravy is the meal that comes after the big one. The holiday dinner gets all the attention, but turkey over mashed potatoes the next night, or piled on toast and smothered in gravy, is what a lot of us look forward to.

The trouble is that a whole turkey makes more leftovers than anyone can eat in a week. Putting them up in jars means no freezer burn, and the meat’s already cooked, so you’ve done most of the work before you start.

I adapted this recipe from the chicken and gravy in The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving, using cooked turkey in place of the chicken. My canning chicken and gravy is the original version, and it’s the one to make if you’re starting with raw chicken.

Turkey works in place of chicken in just about any chicken canning recipe, and gravy is the obvious place to start. If you’d rather put up plain jars of meat, there’s canning turkey, and the carcass goes into canning turkey broth.

When you want more ways to use the bird, I keep a list of turkey canning recipes. There are more than a hundred meal in a jar canning recipes for the rest of the shelf, too.

This one goes into the jars thin, with broth rather than gravy. You thicken it on the stove after you open a jar, and that only takes a few minutes.

Choosing Turkey for Canning

This recipe starts with leftover roast turkey. I used dark meat, but white meat works, and so does a mix of both. Pick it off the bones and pull it into bite-size shreds, and leave the skin, bones, and gristle behind.

Put it up within 3 to 4 days of cooking, as long as it went into the fridge promptly after dinner. That’s the same window you’d give any cooked leftovers. Turkey that’s been sitting longer than that shouldn’t go into jars.

If you’re starting with raw turkey, use my chicken and gravy recipe with turkey in place of the chicken, pound for pound. Ball wrote it for raw meat and the process is a bit different. This recipe is adapted for leftovers, following the University of Alaska’s process.

Ingredients for Turkey and Gravy

It’s a short list, and most of it is already in the kitchen the day after a holiday dinner.

• Cooked turkey: Shredded leftover roast turkey, dark meat, white meat, or both. It takes the place of the chicken in Ball’s recipe. Turkey and chicken share the same pressure canning times, and my canning turkey covers turkey on its own.
• Potatoes: Peeled and diced small, about 1/2 inch, so they cook through and fit in between the turkey. My batch has twice the potatoes in Ball’s recipe. Red potatoes and other waxy types hold their shape better than russets or Yukon Golds, which can fall apart in the canner. There’s more on potatoes in jars in my guide to canning potatoes.
• Onions: Yellow onions, chopped. My batch uses twice as much onion as Ball’s recipe, since the extra cup stands in for the celery. You can put the celery back, cup for cup, if you like it.
• Turkey broth: Homemade turkey broth made from the same carcass is a natural fit. Chicken broth works just as well, and store-bought broth is fine too. It goes in thin, with nothing added to thicken it.
• Dry white wine: Ball’s recipe uses a splash for flavor, and it doesn’t change the processing time. If you’d rather not cook with wine, leave it out and use more broth.
• Salt, poultry seasoning, and black pepper: These season the jar, and none of them affects safety. I use Redmond’s Real Salt in meat and meal in a jar recipes, because it tastes better and a cloudy broth doesn’t matter here. Plain canning salt works too, and so does a salt substitute that doesn’t turn bitter or cloud. There’s more on that in my guide to pickling salt and its substitutions.

Flour, cornstarch, butter, and cream all stay out of the jar. None of them has a tested canning process, and thickeners keep heat from moving evenly through the jar in the canner.

They go in at serving instead, when you turn the broth into gravy.

How to Make Turkey and Gravy for Canning

This is a hot pack. The turkey and vegetables simmer in broth for a few minutes before they go into the jars, so everything’s hot when it goes in the canner.

Get the canner and jars ready before you start cooking, since you’ll fill the jars while the food is still hot. If you haven’t used a pressure canner before, my guide to pressure canning for beginners walks through a whole canner load.

Prepare the Turkey and Vegetables

Pick the turkey off the bones and shred it into bite-size pieces. Peel and dice the potatoes, and chop the onions.

Measure everything after you’ve prepped it. The cup measures are for shredded turkey, diced potatoes, and chopped onion, not whole ones.

Simmer in Broth

Put the turkey, potatoes, and onions in a large Dutch oven with the salt, poultry seasoning, pepper, and wine. Pour in enough broth to cover everything.

Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 5 minutes. Keep a little extra broth hot on the back of the stove for topping off the jars.

Pack the Jars

Use a slotted spoon to fill the hot jars with turkey and vegetables, dividing them evenly among the jars. Fill each one to about 1 inch from the rim. You want the jars full of solids but not jam-packed, so the broth can get down between the pieces.

Ladle the hot broth from the pot over the top first, since that’s where the seasoning and wine are, and leave 1 inch of headspace. Save the extra broth for topping off.

A canning funnel keeps the rims clean. Run a bubble tool around the inside of each jar, check the headspace again, and top it up with more broth if it dropped.

Wipe each rim clean with a damp cloth, set the canning lids on, and screw the bands on fingertip tight.

Canning Turkey and Gravy

Set the jars in the pressure canner with a jar lifter and lock the lid. Let it vent a steady stream of steam for 10 minutes before you add the weight or close the petcock.

Bring the canner up to 10 pounds pressure in a weighted gauge canner or 11 pounds in a dial gauge canner, and adjust for altitude with the chart below. Process pints for 75 minutes or quarts for 90 minutes.

Hold the pressure steady the whole time. If it drops below your target, bring it back up and restart the timer.

When the time’s up, turn off the heat and let the canner come down to zero on its own. Once it reads zero, take off the weight, wait 5 minutes, and remove the lid.

Leave the jars inside for another 10 minutes, then lift them out onto a towel-lined counter to cool.

Don’t worry if the broth level drops a little during processing. The potatoes soak some of it up, and a jar that lost some liquid is fine as long as it sealed. Never open a jar to top it up, but if one lost more than half its liquid, refrigerate it and use it within 2 to 3 days.

Serving Ideas for Turkey and Gravy

I make the gravy from the broth in the jar and serve it over everything else. Pour the broth into a saucepan, bring it to a simmer, and stir in a little flour or cornstarch whisked into cold water. Let it simmer a few minutes until it thickens.

Warm the turkey and vegetables in a second pan while the gravy cooks, then ladle the gravy over the top.

The classic is a pile of mashed potatoes with the turkey and gravy ladled over the top. It’s just as good over biscuits, egg noodles, or rice, or spooned over thick toast for an open-faced hot turkey sandwich.

For a quick pot pie, thicken a jar, pour it into a pie dish, and bake it under a crust. My canning chicken pot pie filling has the oven times.

Still working through a fridge full of fresh leftovers? There are 30+ leftover turkey recipes for everything that doesn’t go in a jar.

Storage and Shelf Life

Let the jars sit undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours, then take the bands off and check every seal. Press the center of each lid, and it shouldn’t move.

Taking the bands off matters, since a band can hold down a lid that never sealed. Put any unsealed jar in the fridge and eat it within a few days, or reprocess it within 24 hours with a new lid for the full time.

Store sealed jars without bands in a cool, dark place, and use them within 12 to 18 months, while they’re at their peak. Once a jar is open, keep it in the fridge and finish it within 3 to 4 days.

Canning Turkey and Gravy FAQs

Readers making the chicken version have asked about swapping the wine, and turkey adds a question of its own about starting with raw meat.

Meal in a Jar Canning Recipes

More dinners ready to heat and eat from the pantry shelf.

Canning Boston Baked Beans

Canning Chili Con Carne

Canning Chicken Pot Pie Filling

More Poultry Canning Recipes

Chicken, duck, and goose recipes, and most of them work with turkey too.

Canning Chicken

Canning White Chicken Chili

Canning Chicken Soup