How to Make Cream of Turkey Soup From Your Leftover Turkey

Thank you to stargazer00, who liked this lens enough to bestow upon it the Hungry Squidz Award! How cool is that? I am honored to receive this award and will proudly display my keen blue ribbon! The best part is, that you can make blue ribbon winning cream of turkey soup, too!

Yeah, I know it looks ugly, but truffles are ugly too. So are sturgeon (with apologies to any sturgeon fanciers out there). Get over it, and coax the flavor out of those old bones.

How to Make Turkey Stock

Put your turkey carcass in your soup pot. Add an onion or some well washed leeks, roughly chopped. Throw in a couple of cloves of garlic, a teaspoon or so over peppercorns, a couple of carrots and celery stalks, a bay leaf or two and some parsley and or thyme stems.

If your turkey came with a neck included (bonus!) make sure you add that to the pot, as well. You could even roast it alongside the bird and then save it to add to the stock. It'll add a lot of body and flavor to your finished stock.

Add cold water to cover by about 1/2 inch or so. Put the pot on your burner and bring everything up to a simmer on medium heat. Adjust the controls to maintain a gentle simmer--you want your stock to bubble gently but not be at a rolling boil. Your induction burner will handily keep your stock at the right simmering temperature.

Let the gentle simmering continue for several hours. Carefully skim off any scum that collects on top of your stock. You should not lose much liquid through evaporation if you're at a gentle simmer, but if the water level goes down by more than 1/2 inch, add some water back in.

You'll know when your stock is ready if you can easily bend or break one of the small turkey bones in the pot. I've cooked my stock until the skeleton completely falls apart. If you have time, by all means take it this far. If not, a few hours is just fine.

Once your stock is finished, press it through a fine strainer or a chinois. Discard the solids--they have given their all in the cause of good soup--and strain the stock one or two more times.

Either use your stock right away or chill it quickly and refrigerate for up to a week. You can also freeze your stock for up to several months.

Now that you have your stock made, all you have to do is make the soup. Don't worry--it's not hard.

What You'll Need
olive oil
salt and pepper
some flour
some leftover mashed potatoes, if you have them
onions, celery and carrots
herbs/spices that you like: poultry seasoning, Old Bay, rubbed sage, lemon zest is nice, too
turkey stock
a cup or two of leftover turkey gravy
cream or half and half
leftover diced turkey
Any other veggies you feel like adding
(leftover diced root veggies, peas, pearl onions--whatever)

How to Do It
1. Heat your soup pot.
2. Add some oil.
3. Let it get hot.
3. Add diced onions, carrots and celery with some salt and pepper and sweat/saute until softened and just starting to get golden brown.
4. Add your spices/dried herbs.
5. Add a bit more oil if the pan is dry.
6. Sprinkle in some flour--not a lot, maybe 2 tablespoons--and cook and stir for a couple of minutes. If you have some leftover mashed potatoes, you can skip this step--this just helps to thicken things up.
7. Pour in some of your turkey stock. No, I don't know how much--it depends on how much soup you want:)
8. Add the gravy, too.
9. If you are using leftover potatoes, add them now and whisk in well.
10. Add your other veggies--cook's choice
11. Add the diced leftover turkey meat.
12. Add some cream or half and half and heat through.
13. Taste and add some salt and pepper if it needs it.
14. Serve and eat.

And that's how you make cream of turkey soup. Enjoy it!