How the CommonSenseMom Makes Turkey Broth

After the Thanksgiving meal, don't throw out that turkey carcass!  Get more value from it by boiling the carcass to make your own turkey stock.

Step one is to pick all the meat you can off the carcass (my kids help with this). As you work, toss the meat in one container and everything else into a stock pot. I have a new 16-quart stockpot, but before that I used two smaller stockpots. Be careful that the tiny bones don't make it into the meat pile.

After you're done separating the meat, fill the stockpot with cold water until it mostly covers the carcass. You can also add vegetables at this point. Whenever I buy celery, I cut off the leaves and toss them into a bag in the freezer. Carrots or onions that are getting a little old (but not spoiled) also go into this bag. I put all this stuff in the pot with the carcass. The last time I boiled a carcass, I didn't have any veggies saved up so I omitted them. You could also add spices such as thyme, sage, and bay leaves at this point, but I don't.

Cook on high until it boils and then turn down to simmer. Simmer at least a couple of hours. Stir occasionally. You can simmer it all day if you want. It just depends on what else I am doing, and when I have time to get back to it, but I generally shoot for 4-ish hours. You might have to add more water at times.

Remove the larger carcass pieces then pour the broth through a strainer. At this point you can go back through all the carcass waste and pick out more meat that was missed, but I find there usually isn't enough to make it worth it.

Put the broth in refrigerator overnight to cool completely. The next day, skim off the layer of fat on top and discard. The broth underneath will be gelatinized. Scoop it out into freezer containers and freeze.  When I freeze it, I freeze some in quart-size freezer containers and some in smaller containers (cup size or pint size). I use the quarts for soup, and the smaller sizes in recipes or to replace the water when making rice.