Rescued Turkey Stock

Prep Time: 20 mins

Total Time: 4 hrs 20 mins

Yield: 8cups

About This Recipe

“I call this “rescued”, because so many people throw away the turkey carcass after a big meal. Don’t! Rescue it! Making stock is not hard or complicated. You’ll be rewarded with delicious soup, and an amazing aroma will fill your home as you make the stock. And you don’t even have to make soup right away — just freeze the stock!”

Ingredients

1turkey carcass( see first two lines of directions)

16cupscold water

2largecelery ribs, sliced

2largecarrots, scraped and sliced

2onions, quartered( do NOT peel)

10sprigsfresh flat leaf parsley( or more, if you wish)

1tablespoonpeppercorn

2teaspoonsdried thyme

Directions

First, you need a turkey carcass, stripped of all its meat; if you’re lucky, you’ll be at someone’s home and they’ll be throwing it away– that’s the time to shout, I’ll take it!

You will also likely discover that you’ll be able to rescue a lot of meat off the carcass; this is a bonus, since you now have the meat for the soup as well.

Try to make the stock the day after the turkey was cooked, but if you have to wait another day or so, that’s okay; it’ll taste best, though, if you can get to it soon.

Let’s get started; first, get out a large pot.

Next, start to strip off any meat clinging to the carcass; put this in a container and set aside; note that this is a hands-on job and you will get a little messy; that’s okay, both your hands and your counter wash up easily.

As you are stripping off the meat (don’t fret, you won’t get it ALL, some stubbornly clings to the bones and that’s okay, it too flavours the stock), continue to break up the bones and put them in the pot; also put in the pot any turkey skin and all the other assorted”bits” that aren’t edible meat.

When you have the pot full of bones, pour the cold water over and turn heat to high; bring to a boil.

Now wash up and prepare the veggies and parsley; make sure to leave the onion skin ON as it gives your stock a lovely rich colour.

When the stock comes to a boil, add all remaining ingredients and turn heat down to a lightly bubbling simmer, the type where the bubbles barely break the surface.

Now let it simmer for 3 to 4 hours, stirring every once in a while.

I much prefer letting it reduce down to where I’ll only get 7 or 8 cups of stock; I find the flavour much better and stronger, even if I have to add water when making the soup.

If you only let it simmer till you have about 12 cups of stock, it will be ready sooner but the flavour is much weaker.

Once you feel your stock is ready, strain it through a fine-meshed sieve into a large bowl; if your sieve is not fine, line it first with cheesecloth; discard the bones and veggies you used to make the stock, all their goodness is now in your stock.

Refrigerate stock, covered, for several hours or preferably overnight; then you can either make soup the next day, or freeze the stock; make sure you skim off the solidified fat before you either make soup or freeze the stock.

Reviews

“Thanks Lennie for posting a recipe for those of us who aren’t as knowledgable.Making the stock just felt good.I used the first of it in Miller’s Poultry Patties and they were sooo flavorful.The rest is in the freezer awaiting the call to duty.”

“This was wonderful.I have always cooked the turkey meat on the bones to death.Never thought to remove meat and just stew bones. I used fresh sage and thyme and added fresh garlic.I used it to make your Turkey-Barley Soup #24638.It was the best turkey soup ever.Thanks for the great recipe.”

“I made this stock immediately after cleaning up dishes from Christmas.My husband loves to make small soups for himself, adding his own special ingredients (usuall hot stuff) that no one else likes.At any rate, we chilled the stock in cake pans (8 1/2 / 13) and then cut the gelled stock in squares, frezing them individually in zip-lock bags.Now we can make single serving meals, graveys, etc. at will.Thanks for sharing!”

“This is wonderful. I used chicken. I never thought to add thyme to stock. I love it. Thank you.To the reviewer who said it turned to jello in the refrigerator, nothing went went wrong. That’s natural for poultry. If I want to make soup right away without waiting for it to get cold, I pour it through a fine sieve into a fat separator while it’s still hot. That’s a cup with the spout coming from the bottom. After the fat rises to the top, you pour the stock back into the pan and discard the fat that had risen to the top. With poultry I like the fat separator because I find it difficult to separate the fat from the “jello” without losing any of the valuable “jello”. Plus I usually want to make soup right away. The house smells too good to wait till the next day. I freeze onion peelings, carrot ends, both ends of green onions, parsley stems – just keep adding to a plastic bag in the freezer. Then dump the bag into the pot with the bones when making any kind of stock. Strain out the vegetables with the bones and discard.”

“Lennie, I made the stock on Sunday night using a 7 pound chicken carcass (didn’t happen to have turkey on hand). I froze most of it for later use, but used some of it tonight and its absolutely wonderful! I thinned it a bit with some chardonnay, and used it in a basic risotto recipe. It truly was the best risotto I’ve ever made…the flavor was fantastic. I can’t wait to use it in my other recipes. Thanks so much for posting it!”

“Lennie… this is the one recipe I use over and over again!It is incredible!Thank you so much!!! And I must admit, it is MY FAVORITE RECIPE on this site because I use it so much. “

“Oh, my, this is delicious! I did use fresh thyme instead of dry. We still had some meat on the back and wings, and just cooked that with the carcass. I removed the meat after cooling it all to use separately. The color was perfect and the flavor could not have been any better. It’s the perfect recipe. I made soup with it the next day and froze the rest. I’ll never throw the carcass away again!P.S.I edited this because, for some reason, the first time the stars didn’t post!”

“A great guide to making stock. Thanks Lennie! I also threw a couple bay leaves in mine. Now I just have to make the soup…yummy!”

“This is the first time I’ve ever tried making stock and I’m quite impressed at how simple it was to do.It’s great how easy it is to get the unwanted fat off after refrigeration. I used some of it to make gravy for hot turkey sandwiches with the leftovers from yesterday’s turkey. Just delicious. I’ll be doing this with the turkey bones from now on.Thanks”

“This is an excellent soup stock.Easy to make.I added a little white wine to the beginning of the stock.It does take about 4 hours of simmering for the full flavor to come out.”

“Very clear instructions and very good recipe.I now have my freezer full of stock.I use about 4 cans a week and this will save soo much time and money, THANKS!”

“I just made this! thanks for posting the recipe.it looks and smells great!i left out the celery (my hubby can not stand celery) and added some basil too.i love making stock from scratch– and have never made turkey stock before, just chicken. thanks so much!”

“Wonderful guide Lennie.I have been making stock for years but never thought about leaving the skins on the onion.It does definately add more colour to the stock.I think I will try that when I cook other broths as well, and when I add them to roasts to boost the colour of gravies.Thanks again.”

“I made this recipe the day after thanksgiving and froze it to use with my Christmas turkey breast. DH was very skeptical- actually thought I was out of my mind but when I reheated it and made a gravy for dinner he confessed it was the best tasting gravy I ever made. It is so worth the effort and the flavors are fabulous. I made it again yesterday with the left over turkey breast carcus and used it with last nights leftovers. The color that the unpeeled onion gives it is very rich in color. Thanks Lennie, I will only use my own stock from now on!”

“This is for deb k: Deb, your results are perfectly normal for any meat stock; you did nothing wrong, and there was nothing wrong with your stock. You see, when making stock, during the simmering process gelatin is extracted from the bones (that’s what gelatin is made from — meat bones — which is why vegetarians cannot eat Jello), and the result is the gelatinous texture of the stock when it cools that you noticed. :-)”

“Awesome!The only thing I would recommend are those cheesecloth bags you can get to put stuffing in.Put the carcass and veggies and spices in a new cheesecloth bag and seal it up.It’s so easy to just pull the bag out when the stock is done – no straining required!”

“I’ve never followed a ‘recipe’ for making my turkey carcass soup before but I did this time.It was awesome, Lennie!I love your trick of leaving the onion peel in the mix…the colour was a lovely golden shade.I actually poured the cold water into the roasting pan after removing the carcass and then put that on the stove.It loosened up all the yummy brown bits and after I poured the water into the soup pot, I ended up with a very clean roaster!Thanks, Lennie!”

“Just updating my review.I can’t believe I first reviewed this 7 years ago.Time flies.Anyway, since I first reviewed this recipe back then, it is my go-to standard recipe for stock at Christmas and Thanksgiving.It never fails.
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WOW!I have always shied away from making stock because I never had any luck with it. Now I know why!I was doing it ALL wrong!I followed the directions and used some of the suggestions from the other reviews.I took the drippings from the roasting pan, added the stuff from the bag in the turkey and the neck, somecanned chicken broth left over from making mashed potatoes last night (Christmas dinner) and all the water per the recipe directions and heated it up on the stove until it simmered.I didn’t make homemade gravy last night because I never have good luck with it, so all the drippings remained from the turkey.Once it was heated up, I poured it over the carcass and all the skin.I pulled all the meat from the carass before, put it in a ziploc bag and I will probably make Crockpot Cream cheese Chicken (#33543) with most of it and soup with the rest.I saved clippings and stalks from the celery left over from making the stuffing and waldorf salad, and I had some green onions, green pepper, fresh parsley, a bit of lettuce andcucumber in the fridge that I threw in.I also threw in a few left over brussels sprouts from last night as well as the onions with the skin on… it definitely added to the color of the broth.In the past, mine was always a cloudy color, which didn’t look very appetizing.As for herbs and spices, I added a bay leaf, 2 fresh garlic cloves with the skin, sage and rosemary (both fresh) and thyme. It smelled WONDERFUL as it simmered. It was so quick and easy to make, because you just throw everything in!The most time consuming was pulling the meat from the turkey and even then, it didn’t take long.My dog was going absolutely NUTS as I did this task! I like the ideas from the other reviewers about freezing in ziploc bags.I use alot of chicken stock for cooking and now I will save money by having my own homemade stuff on hand.Don’t know if I’ll ever use it to make gravy – I just can’t get the hang of that!All in all a definite keeper that I will make again!Thanks for the very easy and detailed directions!”

“Absolutely delicious, just made it but I let it reduce for longer and added sage and garlic as well. Creates a very rich & wonderful stock, thanks for posting!”

“Thanks for helping me make a better stock!!Simmer longer….leave on onion peels. I like to add about 2-4 cloves of garlic to the mix. I’ve made a very close recipe but yours has the “extras” that made it so much better!”