Turkey Soup from Thanksgiving leftovers is easy to make, economically delightful and transforms into a delicious family meal.
I love Thanksgiving leftovers and enjoy using them to make a great tasting turkey soup. After the Thanksgiving holiday festivities, we’ve feasted and indulged in our favorite holiday foods and the question of the day is what to do with those leftovers?
Today’s economics call for some home-style cooking. It just makes sense to double cook leftovers into awesome meals and turn our Thanksgiving turkey in a family meal that’s just a tasty the second time around. In our house we have the youngest cook prepare the turkey soup. It’s a tradition that serves many purposes; 1. the new chef to be get some cooking experience, 2. the cooks from yesterday get a break and 3. leftovers are turned into another terrific family meal.
Here’s an easy turkey soup that you can make with your leftover Thanksgiving turkey or if you’re hungry for some homemade turkey soup anytime of the year. All you have to do is pick up some turkey meat from your grocery store and following the recipe. You have turkey soup!
Table of Contents
Turkey Broth
Take the turkey carcass and remove the big pieces of meat left on the bone and set the meat aside. Get your pot ready on medium heat to make your turkey soup broth. On medium heat put the turkey carcass, 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery, salt and pepper into the pot and cover everything in water.
Depending on the size of your turkey carcass you will need about 4-5 cups, if you need more that’s fine, just be sure to cover with water the broth ingredients. Let broth water come to a boil and let it simmer for 2 hours so that the flavors and leftover turkey meat still on the bones will separate from the carcass.
Once the broth is done, remove the turkey bones, separating any meat left on the bone. Discard the bones. Remove the cooked vegetables and pour the broth through a strainer, to make sure you have removed all of the bones.
Turkey Broth Ingredients
- Turkey carcass leftover
- 1 onion – rough chopped
- 2 stalks celery
- 2 carrots
- Salt and pepper
- 4-5 cups of water
Turkey Soup
In a second pot on medium heat, add in your oil, onion, celery, carrots, salt and pepper and cook until tender. You can dice the leftover turkey meat or your can pull it apart, now add in the potatoes, turkey meat and pour in the turkey broth that you strained. Let everything cook together.
Rule of thumb, be sure that the soup liquid covers all of the ingredients in the pot, because while it’s cooking the liquid will reduce. If you need more liquid, add more chicken stock to the pot; you can use a prepared chicken stock. I like the flavor of white wine in my soup, so you can add a white wine for additional flavoring.
Turkey Soup Ingredients
- Turkey broth that you made
- Turkey meat leftovers
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 stalks celery chopped
- 3 potatoes – cubed
- 2 carrots – chopped
- Salt and pepper
- 1-2 cups of wine or chicken stock
Serve:
Place a ladle of the soup in a bowl over a scoop of mashed potatoes, rice, pasta or just alone with some toasted bread.
Enjoy!
