One of the best ways to use a leftover turkey is to make homemade turkey stock. Making your own stock lets you get everything you can from the turkey and helps improve the flavor of soups and stews.
The nice thing about homemade stocks, besides being cheaper than grocery store stocks, is you know what’s in them and when made right they deliver more interesting flavors, making everything taste better.
One of the things I like to do whenever I’m cooking whole turkeys or chickens is to make a big pot of stock afterward and freeze it, so it’s available whenever I’m making soups or stews.
A couple of our favorite ways to cook whole turkeys is to smoke or grill them. This homemade turkey stock can also be the base for making a fantastic Giblet Gravy that embodies the flavor from the turkey or our Homemade Gravy Recipe that uses a combination of herbs and spices to create a memorable gravy.
Ingredients
- 1 leftover turkey
- 1 medium white onion, chopped
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tsp whole peppercorns
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
- Sauté the onion, celery, carrots, and garlic with a little olive oil in the stock pot for 3 to 4 minutes. Add in the turkey, making sure to remove any leftover meat you want to use for other dishes.
- Add the peppercorns, bay leaves, thyme, salt, and enough water to cover the turkey.
- Cook on a low simmer for at least six hours. Skim the stock as needed. The longer you cook the stock, the more flavors you can extract from everything in the pot.
- When the stock has finished cooking, strain it once through a fine mesh sieve or colander to remove the turkey and vegetable bits. Then strain it again through cheese cloth to remove some of the finer material.
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