Please tell me I wasn’t the only weirdo at the Thanksgiving table telling everyone, “Save the bones for me! Oh, and don’t you throw away that turkey carcass!”
Er, yeah.
Those of us who eat traditional foods and live the Real Food life know that good bones are traditional health gold. GOLD, people! You gotta save them up whenever possible so you can make delicious, nutrient-rich bone broth. And of course, Thanksgiving is no exception! It’s a perfect time to gather up the bony goodness.
Did you save your turkey carcass and bones from your holiday feast? Hope so! Cause today, we’re making turkey stock!
Turkey Stock (or Bone Broth)
Turkey Stock is a variation of the chicken stock recipe found on page 124-125 of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
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If you’ve never made stock or bone broth before, this is a great time to start! Grab those turkey bones, and let’s get to it!
Ingredients
- Carcass and bones of 1-2 turkeys (Sally’s recipe for chicken stock calls for “2-3 pounds of bony chicken parts, such as necks, backs, breastbones and wings”)
- Gizzards from one bird (Darn, I didn’t catch these in time. It was our friend who prepared the turkeys this year and I forgot to let him know that I wanted the organs!)
- Feet from the turkeys (unlikely to be found unless your bird came fresh from the farm — you might have a chance at salvaging them!)
- 4 quarts cold filtered water (I just filled my pot enough to cover the carcasses)
- 2 tablespoons vinegar
- 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 3 celery sticks, coarsely chopped (If all you have are some limp stalks and the bulb at the end like me, that works fine!)
- Several sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 bunch parsley
- Optional: I like to add in a few cloves of crushed garlic, too.
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Instructions
Sally says to “cut (chicken) parts into several pieces,” so I tried to hack apart my birds a bit, and then threw them in a stock pot.
Then, add the vegetables, plus the thyme (but not the parsley), and cover with water. Let this stand for 30 minutes to an hour. I’m not exactly sure why, but I do this with all my stock since that’s what Sally says! After letting it stand, bring it to a boil. There will likely be some scum that rises to the top, so keep skimming that off for a while until it stops forming.
Ew, scummy! Don't worry, this broth ends up deliciously scum-free!
Reduce the heat, cover, and let it simmer for as long as you can! Okay well, 6-24 hours is supposed to be good, but I’ve heard of people simmering their stock for a couple days even. That would eat up quite a bit of propane for us, so I generally do overnight, plus however many extra hours I can stand until the oven heats up our cottage too much!
Mmm... bones!
About 10 minutes before you’re done simmering the stock, add in the parsley. It’s not just for flavor, it actually adds additional mineral ions to the broth! But, if you forget (like I often do), or don’t have any, it’s not absolutely essential.
When you’re done, strain the broth through a sieve or colander into a large glass container or bowl. Refrigerate until the layer of fat on the top congeals. My chicken stock doesn’t always do this, but this turkey stock did give me a little. Skim off and save the fat for cooking, and reserve the stock in covered containers in your fridge or freezer. I like to pour them into ice cube trays and keep the broth cubes in large baggies for easy measuring! An ice cube is usually about one ounce.
What to do with those scraps? Well, now after cooking for so long, the bones will be super soft and malleable. You can almost squish them with your fingers! These are great to give to your pets. Unlike regularly cooked chicken or turkey bones, they won’t splinter or cause any harm to their digestive system. You can also give your pets the leftover pieces of skin and little bits of meat that were strained out. The veggie scraps can be given to chickens or your worm bin.
How’d it go?
Well believe it or not, I’m actually not a complete newbie when it comes to making stock, so my turkey broth went pretty smoothly. But making homemade bone broth is so darn easy, it’s painless no matter what your level of experience! It was great to try out a different flavor than my standard chicken stock, and the addition of thyme (as suggested by Sally for turkey or duck stock) was a nice new touch!
How we liked it
Sally mentions in the book that turkey or duck stock will have a much stronger flavor than chicken. She’s right! I took a big spoonful of it and I just love the taste of this stock. I’m going to be making a special soup with it which I’ll be sharing tomorrow. I know PH and I are gonna love it!
Did you or will you use your turkey bones from this year’s Thanksgiving for making stock? If you’ve tried this before, how did it go for you?
Be sure to check out the other installments of 25 Days of Nourishing Traditions:
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{This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop!}
I collected two pastured turkey carcasses(one was ours and one from my MIL) to make bone broth with. Just strained it and am putting it in the fridge till tomorrow so I can take care of the fat and then jar and freeze the broth. Great stuff!!!
Yum!! I think I need a bigger stockpot. Next year I’m gonna ask for the whole neighborhood’s carcasses! 😀
I was asked to carve when I got there, and after dinner said “Who do I have to arm wrestle to get that smoked turkey carcass?” 🙂 No one wanted to fight me for it after watching me dispatch it with a great bid knife earlier, so I made a very tasty smoky turkey broth with it last night. Oh, the soups it will make! 🙂
Smoked turkey!! Aaah! Wow that sounds incredible. Lucky you! They don’t know what they’re missing, huh?!
Yeah, I was that weirdo, too. :0) I just made mine last night. I’m going to give the bones another round of stock-making, too.
Nice! I feel like such a dink. I didn’t realize until someone left a comment on facebook about re-using broth bones that you could even do that. Ugh! Next time I guess!
Hi – about re-using the bones, if they are super soft and malleable, you can almost squish them with your fingers, how would they be any good to re-use to make another batch of broth?
Well that’s kinda why I always threw them out — I figured they were pretty spent! But actually, many of the turkey bones stayed a bit sturdier than my chicken bones usually do. Some of them you could squish, some not. I just have been hearing from commenters and people on Facebook that they commonly double-dip their bones for a second round. And these are people much more experienced at stock-making than me, so I tend to believe them!
Thanks for sharing this great recipe.
I just made a batch of chicken stock and found that I had a lot of trouble digesting the chicken fat that became part of it.
Do you find using Turkey gives a more favorable fat profile? (E.g., less arachidonic acid?)
Letting the bones sit in the vinegar helps pull the minerals like calcium that are healthy from them.