I can most of them and have a good number of uses for the canned squirrel meat. squirrel gravy, pot pie, casserole, tacos, sloppy squirrels, squirrel burgers. pretty much anything you use ground or shredded meat in, you can substitute canned squirrel. it is fall apart tender, just pick out all the bones and go.
otherwise, I braise them, and the variations you can play with braising them are limited only by your taste and imagination. I had so much squirrel last year that I put up a couple packages of nothing but the backs(loins). last sunday I made Squirrel Diane with them, which is sort of a braised squirrel cooked in a sauce made of cream, brandy, shallots, Dijon mustard and some chicken stock. I adapted this recipe to cook the squirrel from a Chicken Diane recipe that we make often. on rare occasions, if I have some tender young of the year squirrels I'll just pan fry them.
My squirrel gravy recipe is on this site someplace I should add my one dish squirrel casserole recipe, too. it's one of my favorites. Although I use canned squirrel in these, you can pressure cook or parboil them to get them tender enough to use. one of the nice things about canning squirrels is the fantastic stock that gets made in the jar for you. heavenly.
