• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

How to Make Turkey Broth in Your Crock Pot

October 9, 2015 by Jeanne

You can make the most delicious, healthy bone broth, or turkey soup stock or broth, in your Crock Pot or slow cooker. All you need is your leftover Thanksgiving turkey or another turkey, several vegetables, lots of water, and a day when you’re home.

turkey broth graphic

I love my slow cooker. Slow cookers, also called by their brand name CrockPot®, use slow, gentle heat to cook food. The best ones, such as the CrockPot® brand ones, have a ceramic insert that you can easily remove and clean. I use my slow cooker to make pot roast, beef stroganoff, Chinese broccoli or cashew chicken, and many other dishes.

But by far the best use I have found for my slow cooker is to make delicious, healthy bone broths or soup stocks. What is bone broth? Bone broth is a healing food made by simmering animal bones with water and vegetables. Basically, it’s soup stock. The slow cooking or simmering breaks the bones down so that vitamins and minerals leach into the cooking water. It tastes good and offers healthy, nourishing food. You can drink bone broth on its own or add cooked vegetables and pasta to make it into soup. You can also freeze leftovers for use another day.

How to Make Turkey Broth in Your Crock Pot or Slow Cooker

The first step, of course, is to have a cooked turkey available.  After Thanksgiving is a great time to try this recipe, because hopefully you’ve got a nicely carved turkey with just the bones and perhaps a little meat left. You can also use a roasted chicken for this recipe.

You will need:

  • Large 10 cup slow cooker
  • One fully cooked turkey with edible meat, skin removed
  • 8 cups of water
  • 1 onion, cut into big chunks with skin still on
  • Two celery stalks, cleaned and cut into big chunks
  • Two carrots, peeled and cut into big chunks
  • 20 peppercorns

Break the turkey into parts so that it fits into the slow cooker. Add water to cover it, then add all the other ingredients. Leave the skin on the onion; it creates a beautiful color in the stock and adds extra flavor. Leaves on top of celery stalks should also be left in the pot as they add more flavor, too.

Place the lid on securely and cook on HIGH for 2 hours. Then turn heat to LOW and cook for 22 hours. Yes, a full DAY to simmer the soup. Make sure that you are home during this time. I set mine up in the morning, then let it simmer overnight and turn the pot off the following morning when I make my coffee.

Once the soup is cooked for a full 24 hours, let the pot cook down. Use a colander or spaghetti strainer placed over a large pot or bowl and pour the soup out so that you strain out the bones, vegetables and peppercorns. The remaining clear broth will have a delicious taste, beautiful golden brown color, and a wonderful smooth texture.  Use it as the base for soup stock or enjoy on its own. Freeze leftovers and keep extra refrigerated until use.

 

More Fall Harvest Recipes

If you enjoyed this recipe, you may also like the following fall and Thanksgiving recipes on Home Garden Joy:

  • Leftover Turkey Recipe
  • Spinach Stuffing for Turkey
  • How to Make Soup Stock in Your Crock Pot
Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin18
Share
18 Shares

Filed Under: Easy Recipes, Soup Recipes Tagged With: recipe, Thanksgiving recipes, turkey

Previous Post: « Are Mushrooms in the Lawn Bad?
Next Post: Early Christmas Decorating Woes »

Primary Sidebar

Learn Gardening!

writer Jeanne Grunert

Hi, I'm Jeanne Grunert, master gardener, gardening book author, herbalist, and writer. If you're new to gardening, welcome! I make it simple and easy for you to grow a gorgeous garden and cook with the fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs that you grow.

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Herbal Academy Teachers

Footer

peach tree cuttings in a pot on a windowsill

Propagating Peach Trees from Softwood Cuttings

We decided that propagating peach trees from softwood cuttings was the way to go when we couldn’t find the variety we wanted at the store this past week. The best eating peach we’ve ever grown here at Seven Oaks Farm is “Red Haven.” It was recommended by our neighbor, a man whose family has farmed…

Read More

soul in a yellow mug against pine panelling

Made From Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

This is the best made-from-scratch chicken vegetable soup recipe you’ll ever taste. It’s a favorite of my family and I’m betting it will quickly become a favorite of your family’s, too. As part of my ongoing quest to test and taste every recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook 100th Edition, I’ve made the Vegetable Soup…

Read More

A loaf of bread on a plate

Water Bread – Recipe Review

Once you make water bread, you’ll never eat store bought white bread again. In fact, you won’t be able to look at a loaf of “white bread” from the market and consider it bread, in any sense of the word, after you’ve taken a bite of the real thing. Hot. Crunchy crust. Tender, flaky, soft…

Read More

lemon on a lemon tree

Can You Grow a Lemon Tree from a Seed?

If you’ve ever wondered can you grow a lemon tree from a seed, the answer is yes, you can. But it takes patience and time to coax the tree into producing fruit. In the meantime, you’ll have to tend a tree that wants to grow into six, seven or more feet tall. Here’s the story…

Read More

Copyright © 2022 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme