Chicken Noodle Soup is good, of course it is! But Turkey Noodle Soup made from homemade stock, on the other hand, is scrumptious! As I started making homemade turkey stock a few years back, I went on a search for stock based soup recipes. I found a couple of recipes that I adapted into a soup recipe that is quick, easy, but delicious non-the-less, once you have stock and meat leftovers ready made in the freezer.  When cooking up a turkey, I usually cook a much larger bird than we need for our dinner, in order to have lots of leftovers in the freezer for meals like my much-loved soup.

This recipe is adapted mostly from Paula Deen’s Chicken Noodle Soup, with a couple of changes. For one thing, I use a bag of frozen soup veggies from the store, to save time. You really can use any vegetables you want, though some vegetables tend to fall apart more easily than others, such as broccoli, so I try to avoid those. Root vegetables often work well. If using potatoes, use white, red-skin or Yukon potatoes as they keep their shape better than baking potatoes. Two important ingredients added toward the very end that I kept in this recipe, as per Paula Deen, are heavy cream and Parmesan cheese. These ingredients make the soup extra luscious. But still, it all starts with rich, homemade turkey stock (here’s a link to my post on how to make it.)

This is a bag of turkey stock that I pulled from the freezer, thawing in the pot. I like to freeze in plastic bags to save containers and room, but they can sometimes get nicked and leak while thawing, hence the pot. Frozen stock can also thaw quickly right in the pot on a hot burner.

It’s now thawed out and emptied into the pot.
Frozen vegetable broth added, in this case potato water, that I save and freeze when I know I’ll be making soup. It melts as it heats up.
I add a bag of frozen soup vegetables rather than buying fresh, and chopping it all up. I am of course more limited if I purchase ready-cut frozen veggies, but the time saved is worth it for me. At least in my everyday cooking.
Dump the veggies, still frozen, into the pot. Bring to boil again, and simmer for 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the cut vegetables. Cook until firm-tender; they will cook another 7 minutes beyond this, so don’t cook until fully tender just yet.
Add noodles.
Also add 8 ounces of shredded or cubed turkey meat (you can also use chicken). I pulled a bag of leftover turkey from the freezer; see this post on turkey brining and roasting. It is so convenient to have extras on hand for recipes like this one; it saves time and work. This bag I just smacked on the counter top a couple of times to separate the pieces before dropping into the soup, still frozen. Could it be any easier? I mean, seriously?
In addition, together with noodles and meat, add parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Salt brings out the flavors, but amount needed depends on how much salt the original meat contained. Add enough pepper to give it a good kick!
Using fresh parsley rather than dried makes a big difference, though you may use dried if you prefer.
Here’s a great tip on chopping parsley: OK, so I’m cheating a little here, using a bunch of already chopped parsley from the freezer, just to show you how (I promise I’ll NEVER cheat again… well, maybe I won’t exactly promise…)

Instead of cutting with a knife or a special herb chopper or whatever, just put the fresh herbs in cup. Using a pair of scissors, cut away! You’ll get the job done in a jiffy, and the herbs don’t go anywhere. They stay put while you cut and cut, and before you know it, they’re minced! So quick and easy!
So, like I said, add noodles, meat, parsley, salt and pepper. Simmer 5 minutes.

Then, add Parmesan cheese and cream. I like to mix these two together while the soup is cooking; I imagine the cheese blends better with the soup if it has had a few minutes to moisten. You can probably skip this step if you’d like.
Simmer 2 more minutes, and it’s done! Ready to enjoy!

This soup tastes great with artisan bread, or The Bread, by The Pioneer Woman, which is amazing!! Both the bread and the woman, that is!

 

We cook turkeys for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, sometimes for Easter, or whenever we are out of freezer turkey-leftovers. We also eat bone-in chicken throughout the year. I always used to throw away all those precious bones and carcasses, thinking they were worthless now that the meat was eaten. NOT SO!!!

I once saw a cooking show on TV (so sorry to not remember which show that was!), where the chef showed us just what can be done with the leftovers that I used to think of as trash. She grabbed all the yucky stuff, everything from the carcass to skin, blubber, even bones off of people’s plates after having company over, and boiled it all for hours on end to make soup stock. She pointed out that YES! it’s safe and fine to do; it’s going to cook “forever”, so germs will not survive anyway.

I decided to give it a try, and the stock that I’ve ended up with has been to die for! It makes soups so unbelievably tasty, especially Turkey Noodle Soup, and aside from some herbs and spices, it’s all from stuff I used to throw away. Free food, very nutritious, and simply scrumptious! What could be better than that? I mean, really??? Clean nutrition that tastes like heaven, from trash? What a money saver!

Obviously the flavor of the stock will depend much on what you put in it, and also very much on what type of skin and bones used. My turkey stock has a very clean flavor, as I control exactly what goes in it. I typically don’t add a lot of spices to my turkeys other than salt, to leave it to it’s natural flavors. When cooking chicken, however, I add a lot more spices and there is more variety in flavors, and that flavor is added to the stock as it cooks. So the stock I get from my chicken leftovers tastes very different from my turkey stock.

In order to make soup stock, I usually save all bones and other leftovers. A turkey leaves a lot of bones, obviously, and I typically make stock right away as I clean up. Since chickens are much smaller, I save those bones with leftover skin, meat etc. in a gallon size zip lock bag, and put it in the freezer until I have enough to fill the entire bag. At that point I make stock. In addition, I save vegetable broth as well, which I use to mix into soups along with the turkey stock.

Did you know there is a lot of nutrition left in the bones of poultry (and other meat-bones as well)? For one thing, there is a lot of calcium, which becomes much more available if you add a little vinegar or lemon juice to the water as it cooks; the vinegar helps to draw the calcium out of the bones, and it’s left in the liquid for you to eat and be blessed by. I found an article that explains what type of nutrition and health benefits lies within this wonder food, and though there is much more information in this article that I also want to encourage you to read, I will share one paragraph to point out the nutritional benefits:

Article by Sally Fallon; “Broth is Beautiful“:

Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons–stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.”

 

After learning what stock can do for you, I would never dream of throwing a turkey carcass away anymore. I’ve even been known, after celebrating Thanksgiving elsewhere, to take home with me the turkey carcass if the host didn’t want to use it. With so many benefits, it’s a no-brainer for me.

After carving the turkey and removing as much meat as possible, the carcass and bones along with skin, neck, organs, and and all the “yuck” that nobody wants to eat, goes back into my electric roaster again after cooking the turkey. That way I don’t have to soil another pot. A stock pot can be used as well. I add some spices and herbs, then boil on low heat for 4-6 hours. I just push the bones in there, make them lie as flat as possible. Since the carcass itself is so large and hollow, I often end up putting it into a plastic grocery bag and step on it until it breaks apart and flattens (!! Yes, I do that…). The reason I want it flat is so that when I fill the pot with water, I want to fill just enough to cover and no more, and with the bones flat, there won’t be any large, hollow areas taking up more water space. I want a stock concentrate, not soup at this point. It all will cook down and shrink a little on its own as it cooks, but it needs to be kept an eye on to add more water if it’s getting too low.

In addition to water, I add vinegar, parsley stalks from the freezer (I use the tops for dishes, and save the leftover stalks, also nutritious and flavorful, for stock), a large onion w/ peel (there’s no need to peel, just rinse and roughly cut into thick slices to open it up a bit.) I also add some garlic (same thing; rinse, don’t peel, cut a little, drop it in there), and any other herb leftovers; I just throw a bit of this and that in there of what I have available. I always add a few bay leaves and thyme. Some spices, salt and pepper is added as well.

I just stir it in and cook it all on low heat for 4-6 hours; I usually try to get 6 hours in, to draw out as much nutrition as possible. I stir occasionally while checking that the water level still covers most of the bones. After 6 hours, it will look quite disgusting, like this:

That’s when this momma feels mighty happy and proud of herself. The liquid from this horrid looking yuck is simply fantastic!

Then I drain it all. NOT down the sink, obviously! Ha! You may think it strange that I added that, but you wouldn’t believe how close I’ve been to doing just that! Out of old habit I want to keep the solids and drain out the liquids. I’d hate to think of what my reaction would have been had I actually done it… Pouring liquid gold down the drain! It could be that I some day will find out, but hopefully not. So far I’ve drained it into a large container that tolerates heat. I used a large pot this time, with a strainer over it.

After draining, all the yuck can go in the trash. And the stock is ready to use for soup.

There you have it; liquid gold!

I like to put the stock in the refrigerator overnight to cool and firm up a bit, then I spoon it into zip-lock plastic bags in portions, to label and go into the freezer. When it cools, it will look like gel, which shows just how much collagen (main part of gelatin) you get from the bones. Collagen is very helpful in keeping your ligaments and tendons healthy, in addition to giving you beautiful hair and skin.

Ready for the freezer:

 

 

 

 

 

I have cooked turkeys for years and years now; for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, and anytime we run out of leftovers in the freezer. I always used to roast our turkeys on 325 degrees F, until fairly recently. After hearing about slow cooking at 200 degrees, I decided to try it and was very happy with the results. So this past Christmas my husband and I decided ahead of time that we should continue to roast at low temperatures. 

A couple of important things to be aware of is never to add stuffing or anything else to the cavity of a slow cooking turkey. With temperatures as low as 200 degrees, the stuffing simply won’t cook all the way through to reach the necessary, safe temperatures. Additionally, USDA states that cooking a turkey at temperatures less than 325 is unsafe, so if you do want to try this method, do it at your own risk. Personally I have read enough about it to feel comfortable doing this for my own family, but please do your own research before attempting this method.

Though slow roasting a turkey is often done in a regular oven, the one change for us this time around was to roast the turkey in an electric roaster oven, a large crock-pot looking device that you can place on a table or counter top, that serves as a second oven. My sweet husband surprised me with one shortly before Christmas this year, after observing how convenient things were at his sister’s house, when she used hers for Thanksgiving. I already have come to really appreciate my roaster oven as it is easy to use and frees up my oven for other dishes. I can also use it again right away after cooking my turkey to make stock out of the leftovers, to use for delicious, nutritious Turkey Noodle Soup. One pot to clean instead of two. The removable roasting pan fits in my refrigerator when needed. This particular roaster is a 22qt. and it is advertised that you can cook a turkey up to 22 Lbs in it. The turkey I roasted this year was just over 19Lbs, and as you can see in the pictures, there was plenty of room for it.

Last year we decided to put our turkey in a brine solution ahead of time, which ended up being a huge success. So we decided to do the same this year. Brining is said to play a large role in how juicy and flavorful the meat ends up, and it also helps to keep it from drying out. Not all turkeys need brining; some are self basting, others are not. I did read not to brine self basting or kosher turkeys as they already contain salt and can end up too salty.

Brining does add some extra work, but it can be so worth it! How long to brine depends on how salty the brine is. As a general rule, you brine for 1 hour per pound, using 1 c (10 oz) of iodine free table salt per gallon of water in the brine solution. Iodine free salt is important, as large amounts of iodine can be poisonous. Kosher salt is pure, but the weight of different brands is not consistent; so in order to get the right amount when using kosher salt, just remember that it needs to weigh 10 ounces or so, depending on how salty you want your brine to be.

I used 1 c of iodine free table salt to 1 gallon of water plus 1 gallon of heavily iced water, which I believe end up being approximately 3/4 c salt per gallon. I left the bird in the brine for about 12 hours due to time restriction, though last year it was left in the brine much longer and ended up more flavorful. If you use 3/4 c of table salt per gallon of water, you can leave the bird in there for several days. That means you can start the brining process while the bird is still frozen; thaw and brine at the same time. I might try that next time. Kept in a cool area with the frozen bird and added ice, the water will stay cold. If the ice melts, you can always add extra, and if you’re worried that the salt will be too diluted, just put the extra ice into a large zip lock bag and drop it in there.

I purchased a large industrial size bucket from the hardware store, which ended up being just right for this 19 pounder. A large cooler may be used as well, or you can use a new trash bag, XXL zip lock bag, or turkey oven bag for the job.

This is the brine along with ice, before the turkey was inserted:

I rinsed my turkey in my clean kitchen sink prior to brining.

Then I inserted the bird into the brine and let it sit overnight. You can barely see it there, in the center. According to Alton Brown, whom I got my original brine recipe from (though I altered it a bit), it is not necessary to keep the turkey in the refrigerator while in the brine, as long as it is kept cool. The ice will help keep it cold, and bacteria does not grow in water this salty.  My husband carried it out on our deck, where it was cold but not freezing.

Neck and giblets should be removed prior to brining and cooking. I prefer to cook neck and giblets separately, and this time I put them in the refrigerator to be saved for later. I like to add them to my stock pot once I make soup stock. I will write a separate post on that soon.

After brining I removed the turkey from the brine. Do not reuse the brine. It is important to rinse well inside and out, otherwise the turkey will end up far too salty. So, rinse, pat dry with paper towel, then rub the outside of the bird with oil. I usually use olive oil. I also prefer to add aluminum foil to the breast and  legs, though not to the thighs since they take a bit longer to cook. For the breast, I do what Alton Brown suggested, and fold the foil into a triangle to fit.

Remember: It is NOT SAFE to stuff a turkey if you’re going to slow cook. The stuffing will not reach a proper temperature when slow roasting and may cause foodborne illness.

I started roasting at 10PM. First at 350 degrees F. for 1 hr to destroy surface bacteria, then I turned it down to 200 degrees to cook overnight while keeping the lid on the entire time. One thing to be aware of is that some ovens automatically turn off after 12 hours, so you may want to keep that in mind and double check. When researching, I read that a general rule is to roast three times longer at 200 than the normal cooking time , though my turkeys always get done much sooner. I’ve always relied on thermometers rather than cooking times, since the suggested times always fail me.

Isn’t my new roaster oven good looking, sitting on the counter there?

When my husband got up early the next morning around 7AM, the turkey was already done, to our surprise. The pop-up thermometer that came with the bird had popped, and when we checked with our digital thermometer, it had reached the necessary temperatures and then some.

Not expecting it to be done so early, and not ready to eat anything but breakfast at that point, we lowered the temperature to about 150 degrees for 4 hrs until ready to use. Though I would have preferred that it wasn’t done until closer to meal time, we found that the meat still was very juicy and tender, and completely fell off the bones when we were ready to eat.

I often have experienced that when chicken or turkey is done to the point that the meat falls off the bones, it is typically overly done and has started to dry out. That was not the case with this bird, which I contribute to the brining, low temperatures used, and not having waited for an excessive amount of hours. It is said that meat cooked at temperatures as low as 200 degrees F will not dry out or burn, and that you can allow it to cook for several additional hours. My own experience has been that it can, in fact, dry out a bit. But when we turned it down to 150, the additional 4 hours did not cause drying. (I would not turn the temperature down any lower, as meat needs to be kept at 140 degrees to be safe.) I sure would have liked to go back and dig into it immediately after it was done to check whether there would have been a difference in juiciness or tenderness etc. But that will have to be for next time. I will update if there is any difference worth mentioning.

The exact time your turkey will need to cook depends on a lot of things. There are so many variables. You may want to look at some time tables to get an idea of what to expect, depending on your preferred method of cooking. Just remember to let the turkey rest for 15 minutes before carving to prevent the juices from leaking out.

As you can see, this bird was not brown and pretty like the ones typically seen on turkey pictures, which was completely intentional on my part. I have found that the meat stays much more moist if you cover and protect it from browning during the roasting process, and for my family the juicy meat is to be preferred over a pretty looking bird soon to be cut up anyway. If you do want the skin brown and crispy, you can raise the temperature a bit at the end (probably to around 400 degrees or so) until you get it the way you want it.

Usually I make a larger turkey than we really need, then I cut up the leftover meat and put in portions in zip-lock bags to freeze. Some of the nicer pieces we use for turkey dinners, and the rest is cut up for casseroles and soups. I use my much trusted digital scale for this job, to get the exact amounts needed in each portion.
The drippings from the turkey go into the refrigerator to cool down and firm up, then I weigh up portions of this, too, and freeze. You can see how it separates and gels.

I prefer 1/2 c or 4 oz. per bag of drippings; it is wonderful to use for gravy, adding flavor to various recipes, or dilute a little bit to use as a substitute for chicken broth.