The second recipe on my Sunday can-a-thon is Sweet and Sour Chicken. I love Chinese food, and my youngest son especially loves it – any recipe, any type of meat. I thought I’d test drive this recipe to see if it meets our standards, and it definitely does. This will make a super easy meal on those nights when no one feels like cooking, and it’s still a homemade meal.

I don’t recall where I found this recipe or I’d post a link to the original website. I save so many pins on Pinterest, and this is where I found this one. I will say that in the ingredients below I doubled the amount of sauce ingredients than what I saw on the original recipe. There just wasn’t enough for the 5 quarts I had, which is what the original recipe said the yield would be. The amount of pineapple called for is correct, and you get approximately 3 cups of liquid from the 3 cans, but next time I will have a can of unsweetened pineapple juice on hand so that I can double the amount called for in the original recipe. When processing, the chicken does add to the liquid amount, but I like to have enough “sauce” to completely cover the ingredients in each jar before I place them in the canner. So, be aware that the sauce ingredients are doubled if you happen to stumble across the original recipe, and it should yield enough sauce for 5 quarts of product.

Sweet and Sour Chicken for Canning

4-1/2 pounds cooked chicken (I cubed mine but you can shred it if you like)

2 green bell peppers, large dice

2 medium onions, large dice

1 red bell pepper, large dice

3 15-ounce cans of pineapple chunks, drained, reserving liquid

Additional pineapple juice to equal 3 cups

1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar

2-1/2 cups white vinegar

12 tablespoons soy sauce

8 tablespoons ketchup

2 teaspoons finely diced fresh ginger

In quart jars, layer chicken, onions, peppers, and pineapple chunks. Tamp down each layer to make sure everything is tightly packed to just below the 1-inch headspace level.

In a large saucepan, bring brown sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup, and 6 cups total of pineapple juice to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve sugar.

Pour hot sauce over layered ingredients in jars, remove air bubbles, and adjust liquid as necessary. Wipe jar rims, tighten lids and rings to fingertip tightness.

Pressure can at 10 pounds of pressure for 90 minutes.

Makes 5 quarts.

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