Making homemade broth

We have our turkey cooked. Now for the exciting stuff! This is “the stuff” that really makes using a whole turkey (or chicken) a huge bang for your buck!

Once cooked, you have to pull all of the meat from the turkey. It is easiest to pull meat when it is still warm. However, I do not recommend doing it when it is fresh from the oven! You will burn your fingers. So let it sit for a little.

Typically, we eat dinner. Once dinner is put away, then I start pulling off the meat. It is not rocket science. Simply pull as much meat as you can from the carcass, including wings and legs.

Do not throw ANYTHING away yet.

Since, I was planning to turn all of my turkey into meals, I simply put all of the turkey into a container. If you wanted to just freeze some of the turkey you could. A pound of turkey is equal to 2 cups of shredded cooked turkey. Just keep that in mind if you are freezing the turkey in individual bags.

Once you have pulled most of the meat, the exciting stuff happens!

Remember the broth in the bottom of the roaster? Pour that into a container and put it in the fridge.

• Next, you are going to take all of the skin and small bones and throw it in a slow cooker. I saved the actual turkey carcass for something later. Mostly because your carcass probably won’t fit in your slow cooker.
• Throw in celery, onions,carrots if you would like. This is a great way to use up vegetable scraps. It is not necessary for broth, but it adds additional vitamins and minerals
• Fill the slow cooker with water. Just enough to cover everything.
• Turn it on low.
• Leave it on over night and in morning you will have homemade broth!

The next morning, I drain out the broth. I mix my freshly made broth with the turkey broth I had already stored in the refrigerator.

Just wait. You are not done with broth making yet!

Next, I take all the parts that I had in my slow cooker and do the whole thing again! That’s right! You can make another whole batch of turkey broth! I let it simmer on low all day for 8 hours. Once it is done, I drain it and mix the broth with the previous batches. Now, I toss my bones.

I like my broth to completely cool before I freeze it or use it. Why? Because I like to scrape off as much fat as I can. When your homemade broth cools, it will get a layer of white fat on top. (Gross, I know). Scrape it off and throw it away.

With this turkey, I planned on using all of my broth for recipes so I didn’t freeze any. If you wanted to freeze your broth, you can pour it in freezer bags, jars or containers. Remember that a can of chicken broth is approximately 2 cups. That is how much I like to freeze in each container.

You still are not done making broth. I will share how we are going to make even more with our chicken noodle soup recipe tomorrow.

You will get so much broth made from one turkey that it will pay for the cost of the turkey.

Now that is exciting stuff!