Is it Safe to Can Ground Turkey?

It might seem easy to can ground turkey or chicken just like other ground meat. Unfortunately, it is not.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation does not have a process developed specifically for canning ground turkey. Ground turkey is approved for use exclusively in the Spaghetti sauce with meat recipe. This option does not appear in the USDA guidelines (last updated in 2015) because it was introduced after those revisions, so you will see this update in So Easy To Preserve and in our website but not at the USDA guide.

This is NOT a generalization that allows for other substitutions, like using the ground beef process for all ground turkey. This is a recipe-specific allowance and should not be generalized.