Canning turkey soup is a practical way to turn a carcass and leftover meat into shelf-stable meals. It only works if the soup is pressure canned. Turkey soup is a low-acid food. A boiling-water bath never gets hot enough to destroy Clostridium botulinum spores, so water-bath canning is not a safe option.
The method that matches current USDA and National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP) guidance is not “can whatever is in the pot.” It is a hot-pack soup built from ingredients that already have their own canning recommendations, packed so jars are about half solids and half liquid, then processed for 60 minutes (pints) or 75 minutes (quarts).
That half-and-half fill is the rule people skip most often, and it is the one that most affects safety.
What Searchers Usually Need First
Most people looking up canning turkey soup have one of three jobs:
- Use a Thanksgiving or roast-turkey carcass before it spoils.
- Stock the pantry with heat-and-eat soup.
- Decide whether leftover soup already sitting in the fridge can go into jars.
The third case is the one that causes the most trouble. A finished pot of soup with noodles, rice, cream, flour-thickened gravy, or dairy should be eaten or frozen. Those ingredients change density and heat flow. There is no tested process that makes them safe in a home-canned jar.
Cooked turkey itself is fine to use if it was refrigerated promptly (within two hours of cooking) and is still within about 3 to 4 days of cooking.
Three Ways to Preserve Turkey — Pick the One That Matches How You Cook
Not every “turkey soup” project should become canned soup. Quality and flexibility change with the method.
| Method | What goes in the jar | Process time (0–1,000 ft, weighted gauge) | Best when you want |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turkey stock / broth | Strained liquid only | 20 min pints / 25 min quarts | Maximum flavor, then build soup later |
| USDA-style turkey soup | Cooked turkey + approved vegetables + broth, half solids | 60 min pints / 75 min quarts | Ready-to-heat soup |
| Canned turkey meat | Meat (and optional broth), packed as poultry | 75 min pints / 90 min quarts without bones | Meat for later recipes |
Stock is the most forgiving product. Soup is the most convenient. Canned meat is the most versatile. Many home canners do stock plus a few jars of meat, then add fresh vegetables at serving time so carrots and potatoes are not cooked twice for more than an hour under pressure.
Why Turkey Soup Cannot Be Water-Bath Canned
Low-acid foods (meat, poultry, most vegetables, and broths) need 240°F–250°F to destroy botulism spores. A pressure canner reaches that range. A water-bath canner tops out at 212°F at sea level. Adding tomatoes does not turn turkey soup into a high-acid food you can water-bath. Pressure canning is required for vegetable, bean, meat, poultry, and seafood soups.
If you do not own a pressure canner, freeze the soup.
What Can Go in Canned Turkey Soup
NCHFP soup directions are meant for ingredients that already have separate canning recommendations. Prepare each food the way you would for a hot pack of that food, then combine them.
Usually a good fit
- Cooked turkey, bones removed, cut into small cubes
- Turkey or chicken broth, meat broth, water, or tomatoes
- Carrots, potatoes, corn, peas, green beans, lima beans
- Onion (prepared as for hot pack)
- Fully rehydrated dried beans or peas
- Salt, dried herbs, pepper, garlic, bay leaf (remove large leaves before jarring if you prefer)
- Winter squash cubes (not a purée)
Do not put in the jar
- Noodles, pasta, rice, barley, dumplings
- Flour, cornstarch, gravy, roux, or other thickeners
- Milk, cream, butter, cheese, or sour cream
- Stuffing
- Puréed soup (can chunky soup and blend after opening)
Dried beans must be fully rehydrated first: for each cup of dried beans or peas, add 3 cups water, boil 2 minutes, soak 1 hour, heat to a boil, then drain.
The celery question
Celery is the ingredient that trips people up. It is in countless stovetop turkey soups and in some university extension soup recipes. Ohio State Extension lists celery with vegetables that do not have current USDA canning guidelines and advises leaving it out of home-canned soup. Some Ask Extension answers say the same. Other extension publications include celery in a specific tested chicken-soup formula.
The conservative approach is simple: leave celery out of the jar and add it fresh when you reheat the soup. Onion and carrot still give you an aromatic base.
Also skip broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and summer squash / zucchini in this style of soup. Those foods lack appropriate standalone processes for this use.
The Half-Solids Rule (This Is the Safety Rule)
Fill jars halfway with the solid mixture, then add hot liquid to cover, leaving 1-inch headspace.
Heat moves through liquid faster than through packed meat and vegetables. If the jar is a dense stew, the center may not reach a killing temperature in the tested soup time. After processing, beans, peas, potatoes, and corn often look like they take up more of the jar because they swell and absorb broth. That is expected. Start at half solids anyway.
Do not purée the soup before canning. Purée changes density and is not covered by the soup process. Can it chunky; blend after you open the jar if you want a smoother bowl.
Equipment You Need
- Pressure canner with a working dial or weighted gauge (dial gauges should be checked yearly)
- Canning jars in pint or quart size only for this process
- New lids and clean rings
- Large stockpot
- Jar lifter, bubble remover, and a clean cloth for rims
- Your altitude (pressure changes with elevation; time does not)
Keep jars hot until they are filled. Use the hot-pack method in the official soup directions.
How to Make Turkey Stock for Canning
If you only want broth, this is the NCHFP chicken-or-turkey-stock method.
- Put large carcass bones (meat removed) in a stockpot and cover with water.
- Cover and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, until remaining bits of meat fall off easily.
- Remove the bones. Cool the broth and discard excess fat.
- Add any tiny meat trimmings back if you want.
- Reheat the broth to boiling.
- Fill jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Wipe rims, apply lids, and process.
Stock process times
- Dial-gauge canner: pints 20 minutes; quarts 25 minutes
Pressure: 11 lb (0–2,000 ft), 12 lb (2,001–4,000 ft), 13 lb (4,001–6,000 ft), 14 lb (6,001–8,000 ft)
- Weighted-gauge canner: pints 20 minutes; quarts 25 minutes
Pressure: 10 lb at 0–1,000 ft; 15 lb above 1,000 ft
That shorter time applies only to strained stock. Once you add a mixture of meat and vegetables, you are canning soup, not stock.
Step-by-Step: Canning Turkey Soup
This follows the NCHFP soup procedure, using leftover turkey as the poultry.
1. Prepare the turkey
Use leftover roast turkey or meat simmered off the carcass. Cool it, remove every bone, and cut the meat into small, even cubes. Excess fat should be trimmed; too much fat can climb the jar and interfere with the seal.
If the meat has been in the refrigerator more than about 4 days, or sat out longer than 2 hours after the meal, do not can it.
2. Prepare the vegetables
Wash and cut vegetables into uniform pieces. Cook them as you would for a hot pack of that vegetable. Potatoes should be peeled. Keep pieces modest so heat can move through the jar.
A workable mix for several quarts is cooked turkey plus carrots, onion, and one or two of: potatoes, corn, peas, or green beans. Stay inside the half-solids limit when the jars are filled.
3. Combine and boil
Put the solids in a pot with enough turkey broth, meat broth, tomatoes, or water to cover. Boil 5 minutes. Salt to taste if you want salt. Do not thicken.
The soup does not need to be “finished” on the stove. It will cook again in the canner. Long stovetop cooking before a 60- or 75-minute process just makes vegetables softer.
4. Fill the jars
- Keep jars hot.
- Fill each jar halfway with the solid mixture.
- Add hot liquid, leaving 1-inch headspace.
- Remove air bubbles and add liquid if the headspace drops.
- Wipe rims clean (a little vinegar on the cloth helps if broth is fatty).
- Apply lids and rings fingertip-tight.
5. Process in a pressure canner
Add the amount of water your canner manual calls for (often about 2–3 inches). Load the jars. Lock the lid. Vent steam steadily for 10 minutes before weighting or closing the petcock. Then bring the canner to the correct pressure for your gauge and altitude and start the timer.
Soup process times (no seafood)
| Canner type | Jar size | Time | Pressure 0–1,000 ft | Pressure above that |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weighted gauge | Pints | 60 min | 10 lb | 15 lb above 1,000 ft |
| Weighted gauge | Quarts | 75 min | 10 lb | 15 lb above 1,000 ft |
| Dial gauge | Pints | 60 min | 11 lb (0–2,000 ft) | 12 / 13 / 14 lb as altitude rises |
| Dial gauge | Quarts | 75 min | 11 lb (0–2,000 ft) | 12 / 13 / 14 lb as altitude rises |
Dial-gauge steps used by NCHFP: 11 lb at 0–2,000 ft, 12 lb at 2,001–4,000 ft, 13 lb at 4,001–6,000 ft, 14 lb at 6,001–8,000 ft.
If a soup contains seafood, process 100 minutes. Turkey soup does not.
Do not reduce the time because the soup was already hot. The published time is for the jar, not the pot.
6. Cool the canner the slow way
When time is up, turn off the heat. Let pressure return to zero on its own. Wait 10 minutes more, then open the lid away from your face. Rest the jars in the canner briefly, then move them upright onto a towel. Leave them undisturbed 12–24 hours.
After the Jars Cool
- Remove rings and check seals. The lid should be concave and should not flex.
- Unsealed jars go in the refrigerator and should be eaten soon, or the contents can be reprocessed with a new lid within 24 hours if the food still looks and smells normal.
- Wash jars, label with contents and date, and store in a cool, dark, dry place.
- Best quality is usually within a year. A sealed jar is not a reason to ignore off smells, spurting liquid, mold, or a lid that failed in storage. When in doubt, throw it out without tasting.
Heat canned turkey soup to a full boil before serving. Do not taste from a cold jar.
How to Serve Canned Turkey Soup So It Tastes Like Soup
Pressure-canned vegetables are soft. That is normal. The way to get a better bowl is to treat the jar as a base:
- Empty the jar into a saucepan and bring it to a boil.
- Add egg noodles, rice, or barley and cook those in the soup.
- Add fresh celery, herbs, lemon, or a handful of greens in the last few minutes.
- If you want cream of turkey soup, stir in milk or cream only at the table after the canned base is piping hot.
If you canned stock and meat separately, you can build a fresher soup in 20 minutes: sauté onion, carrot, and celery, add the jarred stock and meat, and finish with noodles.
Common Mistakes That Make Turkey Soup Unsafe or Disappointing
Packing the jar like stew. More than half solids is the main process error. It looks generous. It is not how the soup times were set.
Canning the leftover pot unchanged. Holiday soup often already has noodles, rice, or a thickened gravy. Freeze that pot. Can a new batch built to the soup rules.
Water-bath “just this once.” Low-acid meat soup is not a candidate for water-bath canning, even if the jars seal.
Skipping the 10-minute vent. The canner has to be full of steam before you pressurize it. Short venting can leave air in the pot and drop the temperature.
Wrong pressure for altitude. Time stays the same; pressure goes up as you go higher. Weighted-gauge canners jump from 10 lb to 15 lb above 1,000 feet.
Adding thickeners “for body.” Use potatoes, beans, or winter squash cubes if you want a heartier soup. Add flour or cream after opening.
Using questionable leftovers. Canning does not reverse time-temperature abuse. Meat that sat out at room temperature, or turkey older than a few days in the fridge, belongs in the trash or, at best, a soup you eat the same day — not in a shelf-stable jar.
Expecting restaurant texture. A 75-minute quart process will not leave al dente vegetables. Plan the recipe around that, or can stock instead.
A Practical Batch Plan After Thanksgiving
If you have one carcass and a few cups of meat, a clean split is often better than forcing everything into “soup jars”:
- Simmer the carcass the same day or the next day.
- Can most of the liquid as turkey stock (20/25 minutes).
- Can some cubed meat in broth as soup using the half-solids method, or can plain turkey meat if you want it for casseroles.
- Freeze any finished noodle soup you already made.
That gives you pantry stock for months and keeps the highest-quality pieces from being cooked into mush.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I can turkey soup in a stockpot with a lid if I boil it long enough? No. Boiling at 212°F does not replace pressure canning for meat soup.
Can I use frozen leftover turkey? Yes, if it was frozen while still good, thawed in the refrigerator, and handled cleanly. Heat it with the other solids as directed before filling jars.
Do I have to add salt? No. Salt is for flavor. It is not a preservative in this process.
Why do some recipes process quarts for 90 minutes? That is the time for canned poultry meat packed as meat, and it also appears in some specific tested soup formulas that are denser than the general half-solids soup. The flexible NCHFP soup method is 60 minutes for pints and 75 minutes for quarts when jars are half solids. Do not invent a middle time. Match the method you actually used.
Is store-bought broth acceptable? Yes as the liquid portion. The safety limits still apply to solids, headspace, and process time.
Can I add leftover gravy? Not if it is thickened. Fat plus starch is a poor match for tested heat penetration. Defatted, unthickened drippings used as part of the broth are a different thing from gravy.
What jar size is allowed? Pints and quarts. There is no tested time in this soup guideline for half-gallons.
Canning turkey soup is worth doing when you treat it as a tested process, not as a way to lock last night’s pot into a jar. Keep the soup brothy, keep the solids to half the jar, use a pressure canner at the right pressure for your altitude, and add noodles and cream when you eat it. That is the version that belongs on a pantry shelf.