Use Your Turkey Bones for Soup

Barbara Huggins
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November 25, 20080 found this helpful

Roast those turkey bones until they are nice and brown.
Then make your broth.
You will not regret this easy extra step.

Joy

November 26, 20080 found this helpful

How long and at what temp do you roast the bones... thanks

Barbara Huggins
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November 26, 20080 found this helpful

Roast the bones at 325° for about 30 minutes.
Trust me, this does make a difference.

Wouldn't you want to remove the bones before adding the noodles? Sounds much easier to me!

KS Granny
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November 28, 20090 found this helpful

I've been doing this for decades - my (grown) children now consider it the best part of the Thanksgiving turkey! I hadn't thought of roasting the bones first, will do that this time; I've gotten a similar effect by putting the bones and water in the oven long enough for the broth to boil down and expose some of the bones, but that's tricky.

I boil it until the bones are soft, then remove the large bones, pour it through a colander to get the small bones and mushy-cooked veggies out (most of the virtue has cooked out of them and into the broth by now), then add sliced celery, sliced carrots, a little tomato sauce, and some shredded turkey; simmer 15 minutes, add noodles, simmer 10-15 minutes more, and serve.

If folks are really hungry, I omit the noodles and serve it with turkey sandwiches (on whole wheat bread).

Grandma J
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November 18, 20100 found this helpful

I take the turkey when it is about half thawed--start cutting it apart like you do a whole chicken. Then I bag up the drums, the thighs, the wingettes, and you can do the whole breast bone or chop that in half. Each gets bagged into the freezer. I toss the whole back side into the hot kettle of water, salt, bay leaves along with the giblet parts and boil it a couple hours, till all the meat comes off the bones. Pour through the strainer into another pot to gather the broth and let cool enough to pick meat from the bones. I bag this meat separately to the freezer and mark for hot dish, future soup meat, etc.

Return broth only to the stove top and boil down to about a cup or so left. Chill and then freeze for use later.
I have also done the turkey after it has been roasted, trimmed. Then I also take the whole skin off before cutting it too. This and all bones go into a large soup pot of water, boil a couple hours, then start picking out the clean bones. This tastes great too as I slather the turkey top with first olive oil then salt/pepper, sage, parley, poultry seasoning, celery seed. The over seasoned skin is why I don't serve it to guests.

What I do is cut the whole turkey into slices, put dark/white meat into separate tupperware containers. Put canned swansons broth over them, pop into the freezer. It deeps the moist juicy flavor. Drop into a crockpot the day you need it, get to hot, then turn on medium to keep meat at 160 temp needed. This will keep the meat hot all through the guests eating. Put away in fridge when done eating. Our area of the country is abundant with turkey farms, so it is a fairly cheap meat protein. I paid $.49 a lb for as many turkeys as I want to buy and put into the freezer.