The best part of the Thanksgiving leftovers is turkey bone soup.
I’m quite sure no one needs a recipe but I boil the turkey bones with enough water to cover them, add a few carrots, celery stalks, a bay leaf, black pepper, and salt. I let it simmer for hours! Then I take the bones out and scoop out all the veggies. If there’s enough meat left on the bones I let them cool and then pick it off and add it to the stock. If there’s not enough meat, I shred some of the leftover turkey and add it to the pot.
Add sliced carrots, celery, chopped onions and let that simmer for about 15 minutes. Add chopped kale or spinach if desired and simmer til that’s tender.
Add in about half a bag of any kind of tiny pasta. I usually turn the heat off at this point and let the pot sit there til we’re ready to eat. On the electric stove, it continues to simmer for a few minutes but on the gas stove, the liquid is hot enough to cook the pasta without the fire going.
Serve in bowls with shredded Parmesan cheese.
We had a 20 pound turkey so we divided the bones in half and froze one bag of bones so we’ll be able to have turkey bone soup again in the next week or so.
patti says
my turkey bone broth is made similarly, but after taking the bones, etc. out it goes on the porch (freezing here) to cool. looking forward to a hearty pot of soup in the next few days.
Dottie Newkirk says
Sounds good – making turkey tortilla soup with my broth.
Helen says
I usually do this, but this year I used the instant pot. I also do not pick the bones. I absolutely hate picking them! Any way, doing it in the instant pot was much faster for me.
I don’t really care for turkey bone soup, but our big Golden Doodle, Sophie will get this mixed into her filled bones and on her breakfast. I will freeze part of it for later, too.
Joan l Irons says
I agree with Helen. I used the instant pot for the first time to make the broth from my turkey carcass. It turned out great and what a time saver. Then I strained the broth and used it to make turkey noodle soup also in the instant pot.
Helen says
Joan, you and I are pretty smart cookies!
patti says
did you use the pressure cook feature for making broth? or the crock pot type of heat? i’m new to IP and after the fact wondered if i could have put bones etc in the basket and then just lift everything out leaving only broth.
Judy Laquidara says
You can use the IP but you’d still need to strain the broth. I use a bouillon strainer (https://amzn.to/3fNh48Ma) and it catches all the “debris”. I don’t use the IP because I put the whole carcass in there with lots of carrots, celery, onions, a bay leaf or two, along with salt and peppercorns and it’s way more than the IP can hold. You could do the slow cooker too but I use a big soup pot, and since it’s usually a cold day, I don’t mind having something simmering on the stove top for most of the day. It’s a smell we associate with Thanksgiving and it’s one of the things I love doing on the stovetop.
Carol says
What??? You are from Louisiana and don’t make Turkey Bone Gumbo???? LOL We had our first bowl last night…yummm!
VickiT says
I will give a hint that I came up with a number of years ago. Those of you who don’t like picking the bones, or worse yet missing any when the broth is finished and serving a bowl of soup with small bones, you might like this tip/hint.
Lay down two layers of cheesecloth. Do it a second time going in the opposite direction so you will have similar to a plus sign. After that, lay the entire turkey (or chicken) carcass on top of that. Pull up the ends of cheesecloth from one direction and tie it up covering the turkey. Next, pull the cheesecloth up from the opposite direction and tie that up over top of the first layer and tie that as well. Then if you left enough length at the end of the cheesecloth from both directions at the top after tying it up, tie them all together. You can make a loop and tie that so when you are done cooking the soup, you can stick the end of a wooden spoon or anything else into that loop and lift the turkey out laying in onto a cookie cheese to cool a bit.
After the wrapped carcass has cooled a little, cut the cheesecloth open and pull the carcass apart, removing as much of the meat that you can while checking for small bones. Then you can add the meat back into your soup and not fear a small child or adult even getting a bone in their dish.
It looks like this will take a lot of time but once you do it a couple times, you will learn to get it done really fast. I always hated having to pull my spoon through my soup over and over and over again the be sure all the bones have been removed. And just when I am sure and double sure I got them all removed, it never fails that I will be the first time get a bone in my bowl.