Homemade Turkey Broth

It's Thanksgiving and I'm going to guess you have a large bird on the menu. We all know there's nothing like leftover turkey, but before you carve all the meat off and discard the bones, I urge you to try your hand at making homemade turkey broth. 

Cooking experts will tell you that there is a difference between stock and broth. They'll probably also tell you that there's some "correct" way of making it. I've seen boatloads of recipes and ideas online—they are all different, they are all unique and I'm sure they are all just fine. But let me share with you my approach. I hope to inspire you to try it if you haven't and if you have, please leave some suggestions and pointers in the comments for myself and others.  

To get started, I put the whole carcass, meat and all, in the biggest pot I have. Then I fill it with water and add spices, an onion or two (with skins), celery, carrots and whole cloves of garlic. To be honest, I don't really measure anything. I also sprinkle in some whole peppercorns, garlic powder, onion powder, sage (or poultry seasoning), whole cloves and salt. 

I then cover and bring this whole concoction to a rolling boil and continue to boil it for about 20 minutes. If the pot overflows a bit, I just take the cover off—that normally solves the problem. I then turn it down to a simmer, cover and cook for a few hours. Feel free to leave it while running errands or cleaning the house. After a few hours, I turn the heat back up to high and bring to a boil one more time. This double boil method works great! I get a nice deep flavored broth and the color is amazing.

After the second boil, I turn off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Once cooled, I dump the entire thing through a strainer. The broth goes in a large bowl in the refrigerator while I clean off any good meat from the bones to use later in soup.  It's a messy job but if you take your time, you can get a good amount of meat that you hadn't realized was even there. Just look at the bowl of turkey meat I have in the pictures!

After a few hours if there is any fat in the broth it will create a layer on top of its container, allowing you to skim it off. If you want to speed up the process, put the bowl in the freezer for a bit. I find that if you remove all the turkey skin before boiling, this step is not necessary.

After all that (it really isn't that much) I do two things.

Make Soup: 

I put the broth back into the pot, add the turkey meat, some cut carrots, celery, onion, uncooked brown rice and anything else I'm in the mood for. Bring it all to a boil, lower to a simmer and serve once the veggies are tender. 

I use rice because, unlike noodles, I don't mind if it gets mushy. If you rather have noodles in your soup, boil them separately and add to the soup when serving. It will prevent them from becoming overcooked. I also keep the veggies cut large, which prevents them from overcooking.

Freeze the leftover stock:

Using a method similar to my frozen meat trick, I separate stock into 8, 16 and even 32-ounce servings, so I can pull out just what I need when cooking.

My approach may seem like a lot of work but the flavor of homemade broth can't be beat, not to mention the cost savings. Have you checked the cost of canned broth lately? Make your own and save the cash.