What to Do With Your Thanksgiving Turkey Carcass

I love Thanksgiving. Aside from the obvious reasons of taking time to be thankful to the Lord for our blessings and the gathering together with family and friends, I love turkey. I love leftover turkey. I love turkey soup.

Hubby sometimes suggests that we buy a boneless turkey breast, since we’re not feeding a big crowd anymore. He’s trying to save me some work. But I want the turkey carcass, and I always buy a bigger bird than we need so I’ll have plenty of leftovers.


After the big dinner, I debone the rest of the bird and sort it into two piles: the bones and skin, and the leftover meat. The meat goes into the refrigerator, to be made into sandwiches and other dishes for a couple of days.

The carcass itself is broken into two pieces. It breaks naturally along the spine, so there is a front piece and a back piece. They go in separate zipper freezer bags because of size, but if yours will fit in one bag, that’s fine. All the miscellaneous bones, wing tips, skin, etc, go into these bags and into the freezer. Over the following weekend, I make turkey broth with the contents of these bags, but if you want, you can wait a bit and leave them in the freezer for awhile. Of course, you can always just make stock right away and not freeze the bones at all.

To make the broth, I use my biggest stock pot and fill it with the turkey carcass. Any veggie pieces go in too: I save onion skins, celery leaves and tops, carrot peels and ends, and so on in the freezer for this purpose, but you can quarter an onion, toss in a few chopped celery ribs, a carrot or two, some garlic, and any other veggies you might have on hand. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar to help pull the calcium and other healthful minerals out of the bones. Then fill the stock pot with water until the bones are covered. Put on the top, and simmer for several hours, or even all day. It warms the house and smells so good.

When it’s finished, strain the stock. If you wish you can refill the pot with water, add the "used" bones back in and make another pot of broth.

Photo source: morguefile.com

Now you can either pour the broth into zipped freezer bags and put in the freezer, or pressure-can the broth. I’ve done both. Freezing is fastest and easiest, but I like to pressure-can broth in pint jars. It’s a quick start to white chili, or turkey enchiladas, or any number of other dishes. And my favorite turkey vegetable soup.



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