Five Ways to Serve Home-Canned Meat.

If you are like I was - when you have canned that first batch of beef or pork, you open up that first jar and go ... "Okay, now what am I supposed to do with this?" Or maybe not. Maybe you aren't as clueless as I am in the kitchen.

At any rate, here are some ways I love to serve canned beef or pork cubes - even turkey or chicken. My family has come up with some great and delicious ways to consume this perfectly preserved meat. Here are just a few of them:

1. The most obvious and perhaps the simplest option is to make soup - and this is also a great option if you have canned the broth of your meat, too. You can make any soup from canned meat - and use other canned ingredients from your cold storage, too. You can also make my potato soup with canned pork or canned pork sausage.

2. You can make a great hash-style dish I came up with a few years ago in a wild panic to make a simple but filling meal for a work crew when I was low on groceries. It's simple but we make it at least once a week with a batch of my wheat tortillas. Here is the "recipe", although it is really too simple to merit a written out recipe. You can really add anything to it, I have added fried cabbage, steamed carrots, and even fried collards to it.

Canned Meat and Potato Hash ... Thingy
  • 1 quart jar of home-canned beef, venison or pork
  • 3-4 medium potatoes, washed and cut into smallish cubes
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1 medium onion, chopped coarse
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and Pepper
Heat about 1/4-1/2 cup of oil over medium high heat until it pops when you flick water at it. Add the potatoes and onions and garlic and cover. Cook the potatoes and onions until they are just tender, stirring them frequently and covering them when you aren't stirring them to keep them steam in and stop them from popping oil all over the place.

Once the potatoes and onions are tender, drain off about half or all of the oil, depending on whether you'd like it in the finished dish or not. Then add the canned beef or pork, draining off the broth if you like, but you can leave it in there for a more stew-y dish. It's up to you.

Salt and pepper the hash to taste and serve it hot with green beans and tortillas. (That's what I do, anyways.)

3. Make a sandwich spread! You can do this with any meat: beef, pork, turkey, venison or chicken, but it is usually better with white meats. Just drain the quart of canned meat, put it in a bowl, break it up with a fork and add 2-3 heaping dinner spoons of mayo. Then you can add a sour element, like pickle relish or sauerkraut. Then you can add really anything - chopped onions, tomatoes, cheese pieces. This can be stored in a covered container in your refrigerator and used to make sandwiches or to spread on crackers, like tuna, or really you can just eat it alone. I do that sometimes.

4. You can put canned meat in your eggs for breakfast - just stir it into the bowl of raw eggs and maybe add some salsa and chopped onions (noticing a pattern here?) and you have a delicious, filling breakfast. Hey, even scoop it onto a tortilla, add some sour cream and bam! Breakfast burritos!

5. Make tacos. You can use drained canned meat cubes to make tacos just like you would drained fresh ground meat. Just add the seasonings to a slightly fried, drained frying pan of canned meat, add some peppers, onions, and maybe some fried potatoes, and you can use those tortillas again with some fresh greens and tomatoes from the garden to make some seriously great tacos. Add some cultured dairy like cheese and sour cream, and you have hit the ball out of the park.

So, you can really use canned meat cubes for a lot of things, I just thought it might be helpful if I shared some ways that my family loves to eat canned meat to help inspire your off-grid kitchen.

If you have some great new ideas or ways you serve canned beef, pork, venison, chicken or turkey, share them in the comments!!

Blessings and I hope you all have a great week.
Tracy M.

Comments

  1. Thank you!
    I have been waiting for these types of proven recipes before I took a shot at canning meat!
    The closest thing to canning meat was my maternal great-grandmother's "larder". It was just a HUGE crock with tight fitting lids that was full of sausage smothered with lard. There may have been other stuff in it but I only remember her pulling out great big links of pork sausages.
    Never having any of my family or relatives that actually canned their own meats I have been reluctant to take the plunge-until now!

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