Chicken broth cannot be canned safely in a water bath. It is a low-acid food, and a boiling-water canner never gets hot enough to destroy the spores that can cause botulism. Shelf-stable jars require a pressure canner and a tested process. If you do not have one, freeze the broth.
That distinction is not a preference about flavor or jar quality. A water bath tops out at the boiling point of water, 212°F (100°C) at sea level, and lower at elevation. Clostridium botulinum spores, which can survive on meat and bones, need sustained heat around 240°F (116°C) or higher to be destroyed. In a sealed jar with little oxygen and a pH above 4.6, surviving spores can grow and make a toxin that is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Home-canned foods account for more than 90 percent of foodborne botulism cases in the United States, and extension services are explicit that boiling-water processing is not adequate for meats, poultry, or stock.
Why a longer water bath does not fix the problem
Extra time in boiling water does not replace the missing temperature. Spores of C. botulinum are heat-resistant. They can survive hours at 212°F. Once the jar cools and seals, the conditions inside are exactly what those spores need: moisture, low acid, and no oxygen.
A few workarounds circulate online. None of them are tested or recommended for chicken broth.
- Processing for 3 hours, overnight, or “until the jars seal” still never exceeds boiling temperature.
- Adding lemon juice, vinegar, or citric acid on your own does not make broth into a high-acid food. Acidification is only safe when a tested recipe specifies the acid, the amount, and the process. No such water-bath recipe exists for chicken broth.
- Open-kettle canning (pouring hot broth into jars and letting them seal on the counter) is not a preservation method.
- An atmospheric steam canner is also limited to boiling temperature and is not approved for low-acid foods.
- A sealed jar, a pinging lid, or clear broth is not proof of safety. Toxin does not cloud the liquid or smell “off.”
University of Minnesota Extension states the rule directly: a boiling-water canner heats food to 212°F, which is not high enough for vegetables and other low-acid foods, and timetables that claim otherwise should not be used.
What “low acid” means for broth
Foods with a pH of 4.6 or below can be water-bath canned because the acid itself stops C. botulinum from growing. Most fruits, properly acidified tomatoes, jams, and tested pickles fall in that group.
Chicken broth, bone broth, meat stock, and poultry meat sit well above that line. Bones, long simmering, skimming, or straining do not change the category. Vegetable scraps in the pot do not either. Extension specialists have also said that substituting broth for water in a water-bath or steam-canned recipe makes that product unsafe, because the broth itself is low acid.
The National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP), which publishes USDA-derived home-canning guidance, lists chicken or turkey stock as a pressure-canning recipe only.
The tested way to can chicken broth
Shelf-stable chicken broth is pressure canned, hot packed, in pint or quart jars. The current NCHFP process for chicken or turkey stock, adapted from the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, is short because the jars hold strained liquid, not chunks of meat or vegetables.
Prepare the stock this way:
- Put large carcass bones, with most of the meat removed, in a stockpot and cover them with water.
- Cover and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, until any remaining meat tidbits fall off the bones.
- Remove the bones. Cool the broth and discard excess fat. A thin film is normal; a thick fat cap is not. Fat can interfere with seals and is not part of the tested pack.
- Tiny meat trimmings still clinging to the bones may go back into the broth. Do not add vegetables, noodles, rice, flour, cornstarch, or cream.
- Reheat the broth to boiling. Fill hot jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Wipe the rims, apply lids, and process immediately.
Process times do not change with altitude. Pressure does.
Dial-gauge pressure canner
| Jar size | Time | 0–2,000 ft | 2,001–4,000 ft | 4,001–6,000 ft | 6,001–8,000 ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pints | 20 min | 11 lb | 12 lb | 13 lb | 14 lb |
| Quarts | 25 min | 11 lb | 12 lb | 13 lb | 14 lb |
Weighted-gauge pressure canner
| Jar size | Time | 0–1,000 ft | Above 1,000 ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pints | 20 min | 10 lb | 15 lb |
| Quarts | 25 min | 10 lb | 15 lb |
Start the timer only after the canner has vented steam for the time in your canner manual (commonly 10 minutes) and then reached the correct pressure. If pressure drops below the required level, bring it back up and start the full time over. Let the canner depressurize on its own. Forcing the cooling can break seals and under-process the jars.
Use a pressure canner made for home canning, with an accurate gauge. Dial gauges should be checked for accuracy about once a year; many county extension offices still offer that service. A pressure cooker and a pressure canner are not interchangeable just because both build pressure. Electric multi-cookers have not been established as reliable home canners for this process; follow NCHFP and your canner manufacturer rather than an appliance’s general “canning” preset.
Broth, stock, and soup are not the same process
The 20- and 25-minute times apply to strained meat stock. If the jar also holds pieces of chicken, vegetables, grains, or a thickened liquid, it is soup or poultry, and the stock timetable no longer applies.
NCHFP poultry without bones is processed much longer (75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts at the correct pressure). Soups have their own tested schedules, often 60 to 75 minutes or more depending on ingredients and jar size, and some additions, including noodles, rice, and flour thickeners, are excluded from tested recipes because they change heat penetration. If you want soup, can the plain broth and add solids when you open the jar.
Salt is optional for flavor. It is not a safety control in this recipe.
If you do not have a pressure canner
Freezing is the practical alternative and avoids the botulism question entirely.
Cool the broth quickly, in shallow containers in an ice bath, then refrigerate until cold. Skim the fat. Leave headspace in freezer containers or bags so the liquid can expand. Lay bags flat so they stack. Frozen broth keeps best quality for a few months and remains safe longer if it stays frozen and free of freezer burn. Thaw in the refrigerator, not on the counter.
Refrigerator storage of fresh broth is short, generally a few days. That is a holding method, not preservation.
What to do with broth already processed in a water bath
Do not taste it to “check.” Do not serve it because the lid sealed, the broth looks clear, or it has been on the shelf for months without an obvious problem. Botulinum toxin does not announce itself.
Discard water-bath-canned chicken broth, meat stock, or any low-acid food processed only in boiling water. Extension guidance is to treat that food as unsafe. When discarding jars you suspect could contain botulinum toxin, keep them sealed, place them in a bag, and follow your local health department’s advice for disposal rather than opening and sniffing them.
If a pressure-canned jar lost its seal in storage, or if you are unsure the full time and pressure were held, refrigerate it only if it has just come out of the canner and treat it as fresh food to use soon. A jar that unsealed on the shelf should be discarded.
Mistakes that still show up in older directions
Older cookbooks and family notes sometimes give boiling-water times for meat stock. Those directions predate modern understanding of botulism in home canning, or they were never tested. Current USDA-derived guidance does not include a water-bath option, and extension services tell readers not to use those timetables.
Other gaps worth catching before you load the canner:
- Processing at sea-level pressure when you live above 1,000 feet. Water boils at a lower temperature as elevation rises, so the canner must run at higher pressure to reach the same internal temperature.
- Packing quarts with a pint timetable, or the reverse.
- Leaving large amounts of fat or solid pieces in a “broth” jar and still using the 25-minute process.
- Starting the timer when the burner goes on, rather than when pressure is reached.
- Canning broth that was made and then left at room temperature for hours before packing. Cool and refrigerate promptly, then reheat to boiling for the hot pack.
Quality and safety also part ways on storage. Properly pressure-canned stock is best used within about a year for flavor. Safety depends on an intact seal, a clean process, and cool, dark storage, not on a printed date alone. Before use, check that the lid is still concave, the seal holds, and the broth is free of unexpected odor, foam, or spurting liquid when opened. Boiling home-canned low-acid food for 10 minutes before tasting is an extra precaution some extension publications still recommend, even when the jars were processed correctly; altitude can extend that boil.
Frequently asked questions
Can chicken bone broth be water-bath canned if the bones were roasted first? No. Roasting changes flavor, not acidity or the heat resistance of spores. Bone broth follows the same pressure-canning rule as ordinary stock.
Is vegetable broth any different? Plain vegetable broth is also low acid and is pressure canned, not water-bath canned. Meat broth used in place of water in a water-bath recipe is unsafe even if the rest of the recipe is high acid.
Do pint jars of broth really need only 20 minutes? Yes, under the NCHFP hot-pack stock process, at the pressure required for your gauge and elevation. That time is for strained stock. It is not a shortcut for chicken meat or soup.
Can I water-bath the jars and then freeze them? There is no safety benefit to water-bath processing broth you plan to freeze, and a sealed jar of improperly processed broth should not be kept. Cool the broth and freeze it in freezer-safe containers.
The jars sealed. Doesn’t that mean they are safe? A seal only shows that the jar is airtight. It does not show that spores were destroyed. Airtight, low-acid, moist food is the environment botulinum toxin can form in if the process was inadequate.