Canning P.F. Chang Copycat Lettuce Wrap Filling

My favorite menu item at P.F. Chang’s is their amazing lettuce wraps.  We'e made a copy cat version of their recipe at home with the chicken, water chestnuts and delicious sauce!  Healthy and so delicious! The wraps can be a little messy so occasionally I prepare the meat mixture and serve over a bed of lettuce making an easier to eat Asian salad.

The only down side to cooking the Lettuce Wraps is they require a lot of dicing and chopping. If only there was a way to chop up  a large quantity and preserve it for future meals!  Oh wait, there is, pressure canning.

So I began researching the ingredients to make sure they were all USDA approved for canning.  Chicken whole or diced can safely be canned.  There is no approved method for canning ground chicken. It is probably just as safe to can ground chicken but no research was done on ground poultry because it just wasn’t a thing back when the research was done. So for my recipe I diced up six pounds of skinless, boneless chicken breast.

Lettuce Wrap Filling:
6 lb. chicken boneless skinless breast
1 lb. white button mushrooms (diced)
4 – 8 oz. cans of Water Chestnuts (diced)
3 bunches of green onions (diced)
4 Tablespoons oil (for cooking chicken)

Sauce: 
6 cups water
1 ½ cups white granulated sugar
2 ¼ cups soy sauce
¾ cup Rice Vinegar
1 ½ t. Fish Sauce
3 t. Spicy Asian Mustard
4 T. Sriracha Hot Sauce
4 t. minced garlic
3 T. Hoisin Sauce

Begin by dicing raw chicken and cooking it in a skillet with oil.  While the chicken is cooking dice up the water chestnuts, green onions, and mushrooms. Because I was working with six pounds of chicken, I cooked it in small batches and then placed the cooked chicken in the 6-Quart Crock Pot on low to keep it warm until canning.

To make the sauce, whisk all ingredients together and heat. I prepared them in my Instant Pot heating on low.

To pressure can:  Prepare your Pressure Canner and heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use.

To each Ball Pint Jars layer the following: 1 cup cooked chicken, ½ cup diced mushrooms, ¼ cup diced green onions and ¼ cup chopped water chestnuts. Do not pack too tight, you want the air pockets to fill with the sauce.

Ladle the hot sauce into the jars, using a Bubble Remover to help the sauce slip into all the air pockets. Leave 1 inch headspace.  Wipe jar rims with vinegar. Apply band and adjust until fit is fingertip tight.  Process the filled jars in a pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure 1 hour and 15 minutes for pints and 1 hour and 30 minutes for quarts, adjusting for altitude.

To serve after the filling has been canned, open a jar and heat on the stove.  With a slotted spoon serve the chicken filling on a bed of lettuce.  The sauce is your dipping sauce or salad dressing if you are serving it as an Asian salad.  For a crunchy topping serve with Chow Mein Noodles!

I bet you can't guess what we're having for dinner!

Do not crave his delicacies,

    for that food is deceptive.

Proverbs 23:3