What tinned chicken is
Cooked chicken packed in water or brine and sterilised in the tin. It arrives soft, mild and ready to eat, and it shreds rather than slices. That makes it the most flexible tinned meat in the cupboard and the least interesting on its own: treat it as a base that needs flavour added, not as a finished thing.
It keeps a long time unopened. USDA FoodKeeper gives canned chicken five years, the same as corned beef and many times what it gives tinned ham. Once the tin is open it is ordinary cooked chicken and goes in the fridge.
On the nutrition figures below. CoFID, the UK food composition dataset, has no entry for tinned chicken, so the figures are for casseroled chicken breast, the closest honest match. Protein will be close. Salt will not: chicken packed in brine carries more sodium than the 60 mg shown, so read the label if salt matters to you.
Cooking with it
It is already cooked, so it only ever needs heating through. Add it at the end: stirred into a soup, broth or curry for the last few minutes, it stays tender; boiled for twenty, it turns to string.
It wants acid, spice and fat more than any other tin here. Lime or vinegar, chilli, garlic, a spoon of peanut butter or coconut milk, and it becomes a meal. Drain it well first, and keep the liquid for the pot if it is packed in water.
Before opening any tin of meat, check the tin: see damaged tins.