How to Make Turkey Stock from a Carcass: A Recipe Using Leftover Bones

After cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving or Christmas, you'll find yourself with a leftover carcass. This can be turned into literally gallons of delicious homemade turkey stock that can be reduced or frozen and used for months afterwards. Learn how to cook sensational turkey stock from scratch using the bones and turkey carcass.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Big stainless steel or ceramic soup pot
• Fine mesh strainer
• Big stainless steel bowl or another big pot
• Ice cubes
• Oven mitts
• Freezer safe food containers

1. Roast the turkey rather than fry it, if possible. Roasted turkey has an incredible flavor when turned into stock.

2. When serving the turkey, take most of the meat off the bones (including the meat on the leg and wings). Serve the meat, but reserve the bones, cartilage and skin, along with the carcass, for the stock. See Tips for a tip about making stock with turkey meat.

3. Remove all traces of stuffing and vegetables from from the carcass. If you are not going to make the stock within a day, freeze the bones and carcass.

4. Break up the bones and carcass and put the whole lot in a large stock pot, soup pot, or dutch oven. Make sure there is no piece sticking out above the pot--if there is, break it or cut it further.

5. Fill the stock pot with enough cold water to cover the bones. Some skin and bones will float--that is fine.

6. With the heat on high, bring the water to a boil. Let the water boil fully on medium-high for about ten minutes, skimming off any white foamy scum and bits of food that rise to the top.

7. Turn the heat down low enough to sustain a gentle simmer while the lid is partially on. Simmer, partially covered, for two hours or longer. (You can cook the stock overnight if you wish. Just make sure you turn down the heat and cover the stock pot tightly so it doesn't lose too much water. Check once after about half an hour to make sure it's not boiling.)

8. Fill a sink full of ice cubes and water a few inches high. This is to cool the stock rapidly once it's done. Rapid cooling helps assure that bacteria doesn't contaminate the stock as it might if it slowly cooled.

9. Prop a wire mesh strainer or fine mesh sieve securely over a large stainless steel bowl or another large pot, or have another adult hold it. With a ladle or a stainless steel measuring cup, pour cups of the broth slowly through the strainer. This is safer than pouring that huge pot all at once through the strainer.

10. Wearing oven mitts, put the bowl carefully in the sink of ice water. Stir the stock around for a few minutes. Let it rest for another ten minutes or so.

11. When the turkey stock is lukewarm, use immediately or pour it into freezer safe food containers and freeze. Or reduce the stock with salt and refrigerate. If you prefer a low-fat stock, stick the stock, still in the bowl, into the refrigerator and skim the layer of fat off the next day.

12. If you do cook the stock for only two hours, there is still more goodness to be gotten from the bones and carcass. Wash the pot out and refill it with stock and water, and repeat the process.

13. Use the stock in soups, gravies, and turkey pot pie, seasoning the stock as the recipes request.

Tips & Warnings

• If there is meat nobody likes to eat--such as dark thigh meat, which can be tough--then you can leave it on the carcass to go into the stock. Once it's cooked in stock, though, don't serve the meat. Do taste it, though--a sign that all the "goodness" has gone from the carcass into the stock is that any meat remnants no longer have any flavor. If there is still flavor, you can simmer it longer or make a new batch of stock.
• Make the stock without spices, herbs, onions, salt, etc. Trust me. That stuff can be added later, when you use the stock. It will keep better and be better for people who have allergies to such additives, sodium restrictions, etc.
• If, however, you absolutely must use herbs, use quality dried herbs and not fresh. Fresh herbs will turn bitter when cooked the length of time stock needs to cook.
• Stock differs from broth in that stock is cooked with the bones. When cold, therefore, stock naturally gels from the gelatin contained in the bones. A stock that gels only slightly was probably made from a very young turkey.

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