Can I cook turkey carcass and soup all at once?

Well…you need to cut the viable meat off the carcass or you will have no turkey in your soup other than the broth and little shreds and bits. Trim the carcass and then, the best thing to do is boil the carcass with seasonings to make the soup stock first, then add the other ingredients. You also do not want to bite down on small bones.

Yes you can do it. I’ve done it many times. The hassle is that after cooking, you have to wait for the batch to cool, then sort out the bones from all the veggies AND the meat as well. So I cook the carcass by itself, and remove the bones. THEN I add the veggies. If there’s too much meat for one pot of soup, I freeze it for later use.

As mentioned above, you can cook it all together but I prefer making the stock with the bones and seasonings along with things like onion peel and celery leaves. Get a nice stock and let it sit in the fridge for a day or so then peel off meat and strain out veggies and bones and then make the soup! If you can’t wait, make it as you described, but I guarantee that soup is going to taste better after it has been sitting in the fridge for a couple of days.

BTW, welcome to the Collective.

I make turkey stock from the carcass, and then I make soup the next day. Jane Brody’s recipe is classic: http://www.food.com/recipe/jane-brody-turkey-carcass-soup-267907.

I don’t eat meat in any form, so I’ve never tried this soup. But, I make it for Paul, who always raves about it.

Only thing is, there are tons and tons of tiny bones that will make their way into your soup.

@Dutchess_III I think you have a good case for making the stock first, and then soup. The stock gets strained to remove any small bones or other flotsam.

That’s usually how I do it – I throw the whole thing in, including anything that was stuffed into the cavity, like onions and lemons. After some time, I’ll pull up the carcass and remove any remaining meat, which pulls off easily with a fork. Then I discard the bones. By the time the soup is done, the lemons are no longer acrid – they’re actually very nice to eat in chunks with the soup, rind and all.

Not recommended. Make the stock first and strain all the bones and such out, then make the soup.

I cook the carcass meat and all along with all the peels and tops and bottoms of the veggies I plan to use in the soup and let it make a really flavorful stock, seasoning to taste (usually in turkey I use poultry seasoning, garlic power onion powder, salt and pepper). I then strain the broth into another pan or bowl and pick out all the pieces of meat from the strainer and place them back into the broth. I will then take the veggies and chop them and add them into it along with if wanted either rice or noodles and I will then let it simmer until everything is cooked to taste.

Good luck with your soup, if you find you have too much stock (which I always do), I will put some stock with the meat in it away in the freezer to make another pot or two at a later date. You may find as I do that turkey stock is rather full flavored and don’t need a lot of stock to make a big pot of soup.

@Dutchess_III I suggest using a mesh strainer to strain the stock in, I never have had issues with tiny bones in getting into my stock when I strain it in mine. The mesh strainers have smaller holes so its hard to other things you don’t want getting through.

@creative1 Yes, that’s how I learned to strain my broth umpteen years ago. I originally thought I’d do it the “pioneer way” as @gishpar was thinking, cooking everything all at once with the carcass. Doesn’t work.