Homemade Turkey Stock

By Linley Hanson

7/18/2023

Homemade turkey stock is so easy to make. This recipe is excellent for using up a turkey carcass around the holidays and leftover vegetables. Use the stock as a base for soups or freeze it for later.

Easy Homemade Turkey Stock

There is no question that homemade stock or homemade broth is always more flavorful than store-bought. This turkey stock is made with a leftover turkey carcass (just bones and leftover meat. Think post-thanksgiving) and leftover vegetables.

You simmer all the ingredients together to create a delicious stock.

Why you’ll love it!

Reasons why you’ll love it.

It’s a great way to reduce waste and use pieces of vegetables that you haven’t used as well as turkey bones and scraps.

This stock makes the perfect base for soup like leftover turkey soup or any soup, really!

All you have to do is throw all of the ingredients in a slow cooker, cover them in water, set it, and forget it.

Featured Ingredients

Turkey carcass: the idea for this recipe is that you can use the turkey carcass after cooking a whole turkey. However, you can use bits and pieces of meat or carcass pieces that you have frozen over a period of time.

Your turkey pieces can include (but are not limited to) the whole turkey carcass, turkey wings, turkey legs, skin, and leftover pieces of turkey.

If you don’t have a turkey carcass, this recipe would also work with a chicken carcass from roasting a whole chicken .

Vegetables : we used classic broth or stock, carrots, celery, and onion. However, this is a great opportunity to use bits of vegetables that you would usually throw away or that you’ve frozen for later.

Fresh Herbs: a mixture of fresh thyme, rosemary, thyme, or sage adds so much to any stock or broth.

Salt: adding this as a featured ingredient because a bland stock is the worst. Be sure you adequately salt your stock. Add some salt before you cook and after to make sure you are supporting all of the delicious ingredients in your stock with salt.

Turkey stock ingredients in a slow cooker. - 7

How to Make Turkey Stock

Take leftover turkey bones and meat and transfer them to a slow cooker along with the carrots, celery, garlic, and onion. You can add any other vegetables to the slow cooker at this point as well.
Cover the ingredients with water and cover. Set the slow cooker to cook on low for 8-12 hours.
When the stock is done, carefully place a strainer over a large bowl and pour the stock and ingredients into the strainer. Lift the strainer and allow the stock to drip into the bowl.
Use the stalk immediately or let the stock cool and freeze it for later.

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Turkey stock ingredients in a slow cooker. - 8

Top Tips

The more vegetables, the better. A wider range of vegetables used will create a delicious depth of flavor to your stock.

Make a big batch. Don’t worry about making too much stock. It is a great way to store up stock for a rainy day in the freezer.

Get creative. Feel free to play with the flavors and spice levels by adding different dried spices or spicy peppers to give your stock a kick.

whole

Thanksgiving Turkey

This is the best Thanksgiving turkey recipe out there. Roast your turkey, make a homemade gravy, and you are all set.

Turkey broth or stock is great for so many things. Use it as a base for soups, and casseroles, or sip on it when you are sick.

Turkey stock is generally made with more bones as the broth is made with more vegetables. They are very similar and can usually be used interchangeably.

Yes,k turkey broth is a great way to consume calories, vitamins, and more when you are feeling sick or if you need something warm on a cold day.

Storage

Let this stock cool completely before storing it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Freezing instructions

Let this stock cool completely and then transfer it to a freezer-safe container. Freeze it for up to 3 months.

Tutorial

How to Freeze Soup & Chili

Learn how to freeze soup and chili with this easy How to Freeze Soup tutorial . We’ll share all of our tips and tricks to perfect freezer soup.

Ingredients1x2x3x

▢ Carcass of a cooked large turkey , meat taken off (keep all the fat, skin, and parts of the turkey you didn’t eat)
▢ 2 large carrots , chopped into chunks
▢ 2 stalks celery , chopped into chunks
▢ 1 medium sized onion , roughly chopped (you can use the paper and skin)
▢ 3 garlic cloves , smashed (you can use the paper)
▢ 2 sprigs fresh thyme
▢ 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
▢ 2 sprigs fresh oregano
▢ 10-12 cups water
▢ ½-1 tablespoon kosher salt

Instructions

Place the turkey carcass and any other turkey parts into a large slow cooker. Then, add the carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and fresh herbs around the turkey parts.
Pour water over all of the ingredients. The amount of water you add will depend on how big your slow cooker is. Just be sure all of the ingredients are covered in water.
Add the kosher salt to the slow cooker. If you aren’t sure how salty your turkey parts are, start with ½ tablespoon and add more salt at the end.
Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 12 hours or overnight.
Remove the cover of the slow cooker and carefully remove large chunks of the turkey ond other ingredients.
Place a large pot in the sink and place a fine mesh sieve over the pot. Carefully pour the broth over the sieve and allow the mesh strainer to catch any small pieces of herb or vegetable. Gently press the ingredients that were caught in the sieve with a spatula to release any broth.
Discard all other ingredients except for the turkey broth in the pot. Use the homemade turkey broth for gravy, soup, or anything your heart desires.

Tips & Notes

Please make this broth your own by adding any vegetable scraps, herbs, or spices that your heart desires.

Nutrition

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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Photography: photos taken in this post are by Ashley McGlaughlin from The Edible Perspective.