Aunt Wanda's Turkey Carcass Soup

My problem with this soup is the method. As written, you end up sorting though the vegetables to fish out the bones, fine if you get them all, dangerous and messy if you don't. I like to boil the turkey carcass in water with onions, celery, herbs, and carrots added for flavor, then strain the broth and put it out on the porch until the fat rises. I throw away the fat and cook the "final" vegetables in the strained broth. Takes a bit longer, but surely less of a mess. The flavor of the soup is great, though, as long as you don't use too much water. By making the broth before adding the final vegetables, you have the option of cooking down the broth to concentrate it if needed. This broth is rich in calcium because of the bones, for an additional bonus.

This recipe should be rewritten. A novice might believe that 5 cups of water is correct, it is not. That depends on the carcass size. Also, the rice will turn to mush and picking the carcass bones out of the "soup" is a mess. There are better recipes for turkey soup.

Excellent. Make the day after Thanksgiving or freeze the carcass/skin, then defrost to make recipe later. Use a crock pot/slow cooker (or pressure cooker) & make it even easier on yourself. Just make certain you cover the carcass entirely with water. Sometimes I use 3 parts water & 1 part canned broth to enhance flavor. I use a strainer over a bowl to strain out the bones/skin & retain the yummy soup. This is easier than trying to pick out bones by hand, unless you have a big, Chinese strainer "spoon". This works for me too.

Personally, I make my broth the way PatsyK describes below. The only difference is that prior to simmering the bones and stock veggies, I roast the broken up carcass/skin/meat in the oven at a high heat, turning regularly. This adds a really good flavor to the stock, and also turns it a nice golden brown color.

I used this recipe with a few changes based on other reviews. Omit the rice. Add wide egg noodles the last 15 minutes. I used the spices that I would use with chicken soup. Oregano,basil,bay leaves,majoram,ground thyme,salt,pepper and a little lemon juice. Tastes great and made a whole pot of soup with what I would have thrown away. Thank you.

I like to add other leftovers to this soup, such as left over spinach, sweet and white potatoes, celery, carrots, onion, parsnip, peas, corn, whatever is around. Barley or orzo also goes well in the soup. Sometimes I will process half of the cooked soup to thicken it.

I added potatoes and onions - yums! You can pretty much throw anything into the pot; so easy!

I liked this recipe, and I too changed it a lot. I added lots of veggies and at least twice the water. I also added barley which made it yummy. I'll definitely use this recipe when I have leftover turkey or chicken.

(4 Stars for messy prep.) Great to have this recipe because it provides the proper proportions of ingredients to combine with the turkey carcass for soup success every time. The one 'improvement' I suggest is a trick I have used for years for the 'bones' from poultry, etc,. when boiling. Most dollars stores sell packs of small size zipper mesh bags for hand washables. I put all the things that need to be 'picked' from the soup (carcass, bay leaves, etc.) into the mesh bag which then is easily removed from the cooked soup when finished. Thus, removing any bones & other debris afterward is an easy, simple task before returning the 'good stuff' to the finished soup!

The way it is written will take a lot of effort for someone who doesnt know how to cook, but this is a good recipe, just needs to be re-written to those that need to be told to do 1, 2, 3.

This soup has no flavor. If you don't care about flavor you'll love this soup.

this turkey soup is absolutely the best !! its easy to make. my husband made this soup for dinner one night, it was great!! He usally doesnt cook - so this was a treat!!!

Good, not great.

It should of called for 1 cup of rice, we couldn't eat it, it tasted like mush. Sorry Michael

I'm sorry but I tried this recipe and the soup was less than tasty.

This is a good recipe. I used about 10 cups of water (I had a 12 lb meaty turkey carcass) which was a lot more than the recipe specified. It's a great basic recipe, I added a little cabbage and freshly cracked black pepper and a little minced garlic. Really tasty. Made enough for me & my best friend for lunch. My thanks to Aunt Wanda!

This soup was very good. My husband and mother loved it. I will make it again the next time I have a turkey carcass.

delicious soap. easy to make and a definite delight over eating turkey sandwiches for a week.

Hello! I havent even finished cooking it yet, the soup is still trying to boil but I tried the juice, and it takes great! I had to doctor the recipe a bit for my home ingredients. I added a can of carrots, carrots and peas, 8 oz frozen italian cut green beans, 2 cups rice, 1 can chicken noodle soup (totally not necessary, great before I added it honestly,but I wanted to kick up the flavor) sage, meat tenderizer, italian seasoning, salt, pepper, chili pepper. a dab of mexican hot sauce. Come to think of it this sounds like a new recipe, lol! But I used your base, I had no idea what to do with this turkey carcass. Thanks so much Aunt Wanda!!!

Used green peas instead of green beans, and added a few bay leaves for flavour. Very good recipe- but far too much rice. Halve the amount of rice at least and then youve got a nice soup recipe (:

Way too much rice, though we followed the directions exactly, so it turned into a strange kind of turkey-rice stew rather than soup. We will not be making this again.