Bird to the Last Drop, Alton Brown's Turkey Frame Soup

Delicious soup made from a roast turkey frame.

I saved my leftover turkey carcass to make turkey soup Alton Brown style. Since it would be unlikely that we'd use the wings for anything else, I figured they'd be perfect for this too.

I did make a couple of changes:  instead of using typical vegetable stock, I used Better Than Bouillon concentrate, 1 lb of mixed vegetables instead of 10 oz, and used the wing bones too.

Bird to the Last Drop Soup

2 qts water

3 tbsp Better Than Bouillon Vegetable stock

1 turkey carcass
1 16-oz bag frozen mixed vegetables
1/2 c rice
2 turkey wings, meat removed and diced, about 2.5 c, and bones reserved
1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
2 tsp dried thyme
Salt and pepper, to taste

The carcass, better known as a turkey frame.

Combine the water, stock concentrate and turkey carcass in a large soup or stock pot over low heat and bring to a simmer.

Be sure to mix the concentrate stock into the water. It might burn otherwise.

Cover and simmer for an hour.

Meanwhile, remove meat from the turkey wings and chop it up if you haven't already. Drop those bones in there and continue simmering the remainder of the hour.

Note:  while I initially left the neck skin on, I picked it out when I added the wing bones.

After the hour is up, loosen big pieces of meat from the bones.

Add the remaining ingredients to the stock including the wing meat and mix it all together. Cover and simmer for an additional 20 minutes.

Remove the bones before serving. Return whatever meat you remove from the bones to the stockpot.


And you'll see something like this soup.



This recipe is so simple and painless that I really wondered if it would be any good.  Rodney looked at it while the carcass was in the pot and he was doubtful too.  Both of us were astounded when we tasted the soup.  It was indeed delicious.  This is another of Alton's recipes that kicks ass!

Cost: 

• frozen mixed vegetables: $1.69/lb

Total: $2.  Yeah, that's a bit of a SWAG, but I think it's about right.  Ok, let's call it $2.50.  That's $0.42 per serving. 

In the future, I'll definitely use more rice.  Maybe even as much as 1.5 cups.  That was the only thing Rodney and I thought was on the short side.  Since we only see turkey once a year, I'll make it a point to try this with chicken.  That would be tasty too, eh?