Sam’s has a 6 pack of canned chicken breasts for $2.14 each when you buy the six pack for $12.84. That was the price yesterday.
When I bought these exact same cans of chicken in October, 2021, the cost was $9.98 per 6 pack so the cans were $1.66 each. That’s 50 cents more per can than they were two years ago and that’s an almost 30% increase in exactly two years.
The cans are 12.5 oz. and that’s including liquid. I haven’t measured (but I will) and see exactly how much chicken is in the cans. I’m guessing it’s about 7 oz. of meat and 5.5 oz. of liquid but I’ll update this post once I weight the contents of a can.
While at Sam’s yesterday we bought chicken and I canned it this morning. This isn’t going to be exact because I cut the chicken into pieces, threw away a bit of fatty/weird parts, browned it and some of it the liquid cooked out. But, in each pint jar, I put anywhere from 7.4 to 7.9 oz. of meat in each jar.
Once the jars were filled, the contents weighed, on average, 12.9 oz. so very similar to the 12.5 oz. in the storebought canned chicken.
The bottom line for me is this: For $13.80, I got 7 pints of chicken for $1.97 per jar. Add to my cost the propane for canning, the water for washing jars, filling jars, cleaning up the mess and adding probably a gallon or so of water to the canner.
The cost of the home canned chicken is probably almost exactly the same as the cost of the storebought cans. For a lot of uses (chicken salad, tamales, burritos, chicken roll ups, crack chicken casserole, gumbo or any soup recipe that calls for cooked chicken).
The advantage of using home canned chicken is that I’m not crazy about the storebought cans that have the pull top lids. Also, the cans these days seem so thin. I can order from Sam’s Club and have it delivered at no extra charge but I rarely get cans that aren’t dented.
The advantage of having storebought cans is that if I want to share it with someone or donate food, I’m not going to give away my jars. Also, if we are traveling, I can easily bring a few cans of chicken and make a meal with the chicken in the microwave, throw away the cans and not have to deal with washing jars and getting them home safely.
So . . for me, it’s a toss up. I’ll watch for sales on chicken breasts, which rarely seem to happen any more and know that chicken that costs less than $2.68 per pound will be more cost effective than buying the already canned chicken.
I had two packages of chicken so that’s 14 pints.
Teri says
This is really interesting. I wouldl not have thought it would be so close in price. Also, the price of lids sure has gone up. You don’t re-use them, do you?
judy.blog@gmail.com says
If using new jars, I use the metal lids but if it isn’t a new jar, I use the Tattler re-usables.
To answer your question, I do not re-use metal lids for canning. I will use them for vacuum sealing jars with freeze dried things. I can see right away if it didn’t seal, grab a different lid and re-vacuum and seal.