One of the most important tasks I tackle each holiday comes after the meal has been eaten, the guests have gone home, and the dishes washed and put away. The health-promoting aspects of making mineral-rich stock with leftover bones from the holiday turkey cannot be overestimated!
So, I absolutely wanted to include it in the final Turkey Tips segment I filmed for Gayle Guyardo, anchor of the NBC News Channel 8 Today television show. Â This tip which aired yesterday was a challenge to film as I only had one minute to talk about the benefits of stock and also show how to make it!
I’ll leave it to you to be the judge as to whether I managed to do stock justice in the very limited time I had to talk about it!
Preparing the Bird
It’s a good idea to remove all the meat from your holiday bird and put the bones on to simmer right away as its use in soups and sauces in the days and weeks after the festivities end will help keep you and your family from succumbing to the usual post-holiday colds and flu that always come around.
Homemade stock offers three nutritional benefits that are difficult to obtain from any other source – certainly not in such deliciously digestible form:
- Plentiful and easily absorbed minerals and not just the macro minerals such as calcium, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and phosphorus but also critical trace minerals.
- The broken down materials from cartilage and tendons like glucosamine and chondroitin sulfates which aid the healthy and pain-free maintenance of joints in the body.
- Natural, unadulterated gelatin is a health boon to many tissues of the body including the cartilage, bones, and joints and also the skin, digestive tract, and muscles – even the heart.  With the majority of our immune system located in our gut, gelatin also boosts immunity as it has been demonstrated to soothe and heal the intestinal mucosa.
My prediction is that making homemade bone broth will actually become fashionable when Hollywood adopts the practice as the plentiful collagen in stock acts as an internal facelift much more effectively than the scary results that can occur with collagen injections!
In this final Turkey Tip below, I demonstrate and talk you through how to make turkey stock in about 60 seconds!
To view all five Holiday Turkey Tips I filmed for the NBC News Channel 8 Today show, click here.
Source:Â Gelatin in Nutrition and Medicine by N.R. Gotthoffer
Do you throw out the bones after you make the broth OR have you ever started the process over a 2nd time to get more broth?
I would really like to make broth. Is 6 days after the Turkey has been roasted too late??
I make my own stock all the time. Haven’t bought a can or box in over a year. Actually, I have TWO pots on my stove right now!
Loving these videos for Gayle. Short, to the point, with all the info you need.
Made my first batch of turkey bone broth and really thought I wouldn’t achieve the “gel” that everyone speaks so highly of. I DID IT! And I was soooo excited!! My family and I have been enjoying the broth as has our dog who enjoys it over his dinner. Now that I have confidence in my broth making, I will never ever ever go back to store bought again. Thanks so much for all the wisdom you impart!
Thanks for all the tips! I made my first bone broth with the Thanksgiving turkey scraps and it turned out great. I didn’t know that less scum means better turkey – I hardly had any, so my mom must have gotten a pasture raised bird after all! I tried to get whole fish at the store the other day with no success, but I plan to try the Asian markets next so I can make some fish broth.
After the stock is made what seasoning suggestions do you have so the broth is tasty to drink?
Luise,
I don’t add any seasonings to broth as it is cooking except a handful of peppercorns.
I add my seasonings when preparing the broth for a meal: salt, pepper, worchestershire sauce, sometimes sage, oregano, fenegreek powders or curry powder, or curry pastes… one of the reasons I love broth so much is that the possibilities are endless. Each broth soup is different….
I guess for drinking I’d definitely use worchestershire, salt and pepper. Or even curry. My DH loves to add tabasco sauce.
Kathy, thank you for your reply.
I do cool the broth in my stainless steel pot using a big chunk of ice frozen in a bag. It cools the broth quickly (about 15 minutes) and then I pour into the ziplock blue-tops so it’s cool going into the containers. While they are BPA free, I agree it’s not a good idea to mix heat and plastic (I actually try to avoid plastics if I can).
Based on your comment, the problem I see might be using the frozen chunk of water in ziplock baggie immersed into the warm broth. Any thoughts on that?
I don’t have any other way to cool the broth quickly, which I understand is the best way to avoid bacterial growth – quick cool = better.
I actually don’t reuse the fats – I was just thinking it would protect the broth from those pesky ice crystals that can form on the surface.
Many thanks to all here who are sharing their experiences; it’s very helpful!
There’s a new size of Ball jar you could try for cooling and freezing. They’re a pint-and-a-half, with perfectly straight sides so they’re less likely to crack in the freezer, and easier to get the stuff out if just partly thawed. I’ve found them at Ace Hardware.
Question about skimming fat layer: After initial straining I put into ziplock blue-tops and refrigerate. A “fat layer” comes to the top. I have begun to freeze it just as is, thinking the fat layer will prevent any ‘freezer burn’ from touching the broth itself. I thaw a bit and pick off fat layer in nice big chunks before using.
Am I smart or am I making a mistake?
Sarah, or anyone else, thoughts please? I’m still a bit new to the world of broths.
If it’s a pastured bird you can keep the fat and use it for other things, if a conventional bird discard the fat becasue that’s where toxins are stored. I think the way you’re doing it is fine if it works for you. The only bad thing I can see is if you’re putting hot stock into plastic which is a no-no becasue it pulls the toxins out of the plastic into your broth. Cooling it in glass and then transfering it plastic to freeze is a better option. You can take the fat layer off before you freeze that will be fine.
I am so glad I saved the bones!!! mine will be in very soon.
BTW…Sarah, you mentioned about your son having had eczema. My son who is nine, has eczema all over his legs. It used to be all over his body including face. It all started before he even turned one. So, thank God it is much better now. What helped your son heal from eczema?? Thank you
My turkey stock turned out very dark. Is that normal?