A key to saving on the holiday food budget is to cut down on waste. The turkey that so many people eat at Thanksgiving or Christmas can be a large part of holiday food expenses, even with loss-leader prices at groceries stores, yet much of it is often wasted. After most of the meat is removed from the bones, why throw them out, or simply give them to the dog? Much value remains in those turkey bones.
Rendering Turkey Bones While Eating Dinner
After de-boning the turkey, the bones and small pieces of meat, skin, and sinews can be left in the roasting pan (or roaster or Dutch oven), water added according to how much soup is desired, and turned on a low temperature (say 250 degrees) while dinner is served. Leftover giblets can also be added for flavoring. Several hours of this low heat will render much flavor out of the bones and into the water.
At this point, nothing needs to be added other than water. This step is not making soup—it is creating broth (stock) from which the soup will be made. So no preparation of other ingredients is required. Take time to enjoy the meal, and let the low heat work on its own. After a few hours, the broth will be ready, in the quantity corresponding to how much water is added.
Finding a Good Turkey Soup Recipe
Cookbooks and the Internet abound with turkey soup recipes. Most of these are variations on the same theme. Some will use only the broth as the stock. Some will add milk, or a tomato juice base. All will include a mix of other ingredients, such as:
- green vegetables, such as cabbage or zucchini
- onion
- other vegetables, such as corn, carrots, peas, turnips, or yellow squash
- noodles, or rice, or barley, or potatoes
- spices
The flavor of the turkey stock itself should make the soup great. Other ingredients will enhance this. Experimentation with various recipes or simply by trial and error almost can’t fail.
Making Turkey Soup Healthier
One of the main concerns about turkey soup made with stock from rendered bones is the fat content. Health experts mostly advise that eating less fat is better. This negative of turkey soup can be made less of a negative by refrigerating the stock (or soup) overnight, allowing most of the fat to surface and congeal, after which it can be scraped off and discarded. The flavor is in the stock; removing the fat will not harm the soup.
Before refrigeration, however, it is best to remove the bones from the stock, and to strain out any skin or sinews that remain. This makes removing the fat easier. Bits of meat that separate from the bones during rendering can be left in the stock for bulk and additional flavoring.
Turkey soup can also be made healthier by the choice of ingredients to add. Different turkey soup recipes call for various added ingredients. These typically consist of vegetables and starch products. By carefully selecting these, the soup can be chock-full of nutrients and fiber as well as flavor.
Freeze Turkey Soup for Later Use
Of course, at the end of the holiday meal, the refrigerator is often full of leftovers, and finding room for the soup may be a problem. This is only a one or two day difficulty, however, as the leftovers will be eaten rather quickly. Use a cooler if needed to keep the broth for a night, and then the soup for another night or two.
Turkey soup can be frozen in freezer containers or bags, and used later for convenience. In fact, the soup will be just as flavorful upon thawing as it is fresh. As long as the containers are freezer-tight, and the length of storage not excessively long, there’s no reason why the soup won’t provide as good a meal in March as it does in November or December.
HOL101
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