This homemade chicken soup canning recipe combines tender chicken, carrots, celery, onions, potatoes, garlic, and savory herbs in a flavorful broth. Pressure canning chicken soup creates a convenient, shelf-stable meal you can enjoy throughout the year. Whether you want a comforting bowl of soup during cold and flu season or a quick homemade dinner on a busy evening, keeping chicken soup in your pantry makes mealtime easier. Learn how to prepare this hearty soup, understand the pressure canning process, and explore ingredient substitutions that allow you to customize its flavor.

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Last updated: October 23, 2026
By Diane Devereaux | The Canning Diva®

Key Takeaways

• Homemade comfort food: Chicken soup combines wholesome ingredients, savory herbs, and tender vegetables in a nourishing meal.
• Convenient pantry meals: Home-canned chicken soup provides a ready-to-heat foundation for lunches, dinners, and comforting meals.
• Flexible ingredients: Customize your chicken soup by swapping vegetables to suit your family's preferences while maintaining the same ingredient quantities and ratios.
• Add noodles later: For the best texture and consistency, add pasta or rice when reheating your home-canned chicken soup on the stovetop. This prevents them from becoming overly soft and mushy during processing and storage.

A Family Tradition: Nature's Cold and Flu Remedy

Growing up, homemade chicken soup was a staple in our household. My mother made large stockpots of soup every fall, filling the kitchen with the wonderful aroma of simmering chicken, garlic, vegetables, and herbs. She affectionately called it "nature's penicillin." Like so many families, we turned to homemade chicken soup whenever someone started feeling under the weather. A steaming bowl provided warmth, hydration, nourishment, and a little comfort when we needed it most.

There's a reason generations of mothers and grandmothers have reached for a big pot of chicken soup whenever someone in the family starts sniffling! This comforting tradition dates back centuries. In fact, the 12th-century physician and philosopher Maimonides recommended chicken broth for respiratory ailments, helping establish its reputation as a restorative food.

Chicken soup eventually earned the affectionate nickname "Jewish penicillin," particularly among Eastern European Jewish families who passed their treasured recipes from one generation to the next. Across the world, cultures developed their own versions, combining chicken, vegetables, herbs, and flavorful broths to nourish their families.

Even modern researchers have taken an interest in this age-old tradition. A 2000 study at the University of Nebraska found that chicken soup demonstrated anti-inflammatory activity in laboratory testing, giving us another interesting reason to appreciate what our grandmothers knew all along.

For me, chicken soup will always bring back memories of my mother's kitchen, the aroma of garlic and herbs simmering on the stovetop, and the comfort of knowing a warm, homemade meal was waiting whenever we needed one. And thanks to home canning, I can keep that wonderful family tradition alive, one jar at a time!

Why Chicken Soup Makes an Excellent Pantry Staple

One of the greatest advantages of home canning is having complete meals or meal starters available without relying on store-bought convenience foods. Chicken soup offers exceptional versatility because you can enjoy it exactly as prepared or use it as the foundation for other dishes.

Serve it with warm cornbread, add freshly cooked egg noodles, or pair it with homemade bread for a satisfying dinner. You can even use the flavorful broth and tender chicken as a starting point for other homemade creations.

During the fall harvest, this recipe also provides a wonderful opportunity to use fresh carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, and herbs from your garden. Rather than preparing one enormous batch of soup for immediate consumption, pressure canning allows you to preserve portions for future meals. Unlike a basic chicken broth recipe, this soup incorporates several layers of flavor.

• Chicken and homemade broth: Cooking a whole chicken creates a flavorful foundation while providing both light and dark meat.
• Garlic and onions: These aromatic ingredients give the broth its familiar savory character.
• Carrots and celery: These classic soup vegetables contribute natural sweetness, flavor, and texture. Including celery leaves adds another layer of flavor.
• Potatoes: Diced potatoes make the soup heartier and more substantial.
• Basil and bay leaves: These herbs complement the chicken and vegetables without overpowering their natural flavors.
• Home-canned tomatoes or salsa: This is where the recipe becomes especially interesting! A pint of my Basil Diced Tomatoes adds a wonderful tomato flavor, while a pint of my homemade salsa creates a slightly spicier variation.

I especially enjoy the salsa version when I want a little extra kick. The jalapeños add warmth and spice, creating a delicious variation on traditional chicken soup.

How to Customize Your Chicken Soup

One of the things I teach in my book, The Canning Diva Presents Meals in a Jar, is how to safely substitute ingredients in home-canned meals while maintaining the recipe's original ingredient ratios. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of carrots, you may substitute 1 cup of peas. You can also mix and match vegetables to suit your family's preferences, as long as you maintain the same total quantity.

This flexibility makes home canning even more practical, allowing you to work with seasonal harvests, ingredients already in your pantry, and the flavors your family enjoys most. If you are new to pressure canning, visit my free online canning classes and start with Principles of Pressure Canning. Understanding the fundamentals will help you approach recipes like this with confidence.

Chicken Soup Canning Recipe

Makes about 8 Quarts or 16 Pints

I grew up eating this soup, it truly was a staple in our home. My sweet lil mumma would happily whip-up a large stockpot full every fall season. She called this soup, nature's penicillin, because of its anti-inflammatory properties used to ward of cold and flu germs and boost the immune system. Having this on the ready in your pantry makes things so much easier, especially if you are feeling under the weather.

Ingredients

8 Quarts of Water (32 cups)
1 Whole chicken cut in pieces – keep skin on chicken
3 Bay Leaves
5 Garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 Tablespoon Dried Basil or 2 Tablespoons Fresh Basil chopped fine
1 Tablespoon Sea Salt – optional
Black Pepper to taste – about 2 teaspoons
2 cups Onion, diced
6 cups Carrots, chopped
2 cups of Celery – including the leaves, chopped
2 cups Idaho Potatoes, diced
1 Pint jar of Diane’s Basil Diced Tomatoes or 1 Pint jar Diane’s Salsa

Instructions

1. Place water and all chicken pieces in a large stock pot and bring to boil.  Reduce heat to medium and boil chicken until cooked through – approximately 30 minutes.  Remove chicken pieces and skim foam off top of water.
2. Keeping the water at a nice boil, add all seasonings.  Boil for 5 minutes.

   

3. Chicken Prep:  Remove all skin and bones from the cooled chicken.  Using either a knife or your fingers, cut/tear chicken into bite size pieces until all meat (both light and dark) has been removed from the carcass.  Add remaining ingredients and cut chicken to the stock pot and boil an additional 5 minutes.
4. Adding a jar of your home-canned salsa gives your soup the kick it needs to rid yourself of a nasty cold/flu bug - and clear away any congestion so you can breath easy!  The secret is in the Jalapenos.
5. Hot pack soup into prepared jars being sure to leave a 1” headspace.  Wipe each rim with a warm wash cloth dipped in vinegar.  (The vinegar cuts through the grease from the chicken.)  Place lid and rings on each jar and hand tighten.
6. If you have remaining soup broth in your stockpot, be sure to ladle it into jars as well. Process it right alongside the jars filled with soup so you have chicken stock to use later in meal creations.
7. Pressure at 10 pounds of pressure or according to your canner type and elevation; process quart jars for 90 minutes and pint jars for 75 minutes.

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About the Author:
Diane Devereaux, The Canning Diva®, is a nationally recognized food preservation expert, author, and educator with over 30 years of home canning experience. She’s the author of multiple top-selling canning books and teaches workshops across the U.S. Learn more at TheCanningDiva.com.