Easy Homemade Turkey Soup

Making Homemade Turkey Soup after your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner is super easy and a delicious way to use all the leftovers. This is the basic, easy homemade turkey soup recipe you remember your mom making. It's delicious!

It's that time of year again, my friends! Time to grab out soup pots and get ready to dig into a warm and delicious bowl of post-Thanksgiving turkey soup!

This is a recipe that I've made a million times, or once a year since I was probably 19 so not actually anywhere near a million. Sidebar → I think I may have been the only 19-year-old on the planet geeky enough to make homemade turkey soup after her Thanksgiving dinner.

Why we love this turkey soup recipe

• It reminds us of home and family and being a kid. It's the same exact recipe that my mom made after every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner so there's big-time nostalgia going on here.
• It's super easy to make.
• The broth, made from simmering that pile of turkey bones you have, is unbelievably flavorful.
• Eating a bowl of this turkey soup is like getting a big hug. Honestly, it's all good feelings here.

The Best Homemade Turkey Soup

This soup is 90% about the delicious homemade turkey stock. You could drink the stock on its own it's so good.

It's also ridiculously easy to make. All you're going to do is remove as much of the meat as you can, break the bones into a few pieces so that they fit in your largest pot or crockpot, then fill with water. You'll super slow simmer the stock overnight and wake up to the most amazing smelling home and a pot of tasty turkey broth.

You'll notice that I don't add anything other than the turkey bones to the pot. I've made it plenty of times by adding different herbs, peppercorns, onions, carrots, etc. but I don't notice a major difference in flavor at the end so I've stopped doing that. The roasted turkey is all the flavor you need.

You can either make the soup right away from the turkey stock, or you can refrigerate it for up to 3 days, or freeze it for at least 3 months.

Butter up some bread and dig in!

Do you ever look at the turkey as you're putting it into the roasting pan, long before all your friends and family show up, and think, “I'm going to be eating turkey sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for the next week”?

I think this every year, but thankfully my friends are not light eaters. I had 15 people over for dinner this year and roasted a 17-pound bird, all but a few scraps are gone. We ate over a pound of meat plus all (and there were a lot) of fixings and dessert. That's not a small feat.

I'm happy to not eat turkey sandwiches all week long. I was able to make one sandwich, plus prepare a whole pot of homemade turkey soup.

Homemade turkey soup, is my third favorite thing about turkey dinners, after the dinner itself taking first place and sandwiches second. While coming in third place out of only three possible spots isn't exactly winning any prizes, do know that I really do like turkey soup. There's a sense of warmth and comfort about sitting down to a bowl of hot soup on a cool autumn day that is trumped only by knowing you made it from scratch.

And here's the other great thing about it: it's super easy to make! And after all the work that goes into preparing a turkey dinner, easy is what I'm looking for.

How to make homemade turkey soup

The recipe goes something like this: grab your biggest pot, throw in the turkey bones and fill the pot with water. Simmer. Keep simmering. Strain. Sauté some onions, carrots, and celery, add the turkey broth you just made and some leftover turkey meat. Serve, preferably with a crusty piece of well-buttered bread.

The recipe below is how I typically make homemade turkey soup. If you choose to add egg noodles and turn this recipe into a homemade turkey noodle soup, cook them separately and add them to each bowl of soup to prevent them from getting over-cooked and mushy.

If you'd rather have a homemade turkey vegetable soup, or you eat paleo or Whole30, simply leave the noodles out.

Wondering what to do with all your Thanksgiving leftovers?

If you have a pile of turkey dinner leftovers in your fridge, here are a few of our other favorite recipe that put them to good use.

• Thanksgiving Leftovers Eggs Benedict 
• Blue Cheese and Roasted Brussels Sprouts Pizza
• Cheesy Leftover Mashed Potato Cakes

Remember to subscribe to THE ENDLESS MEAL'S NEWSLETTER for FREE to get healthy and delicious recipes each week + our cookbook!

Easy recipes for leftover turkey:

• Healthy Creamy Turkey Mushroom Soup
• Butter Turkey Curry
• Thai Coconut Turkey Soup
• Crockpot Leftover Turkey Bolognese
• BBQ Pulled Turkey Pizza

Easy Homemade Turkey Soup

• Author: Kristen Stevens
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins + 8-10 hours to simmer the stock
• Total Time: 30 mins
• Yield: 4 servings 1x
• Category: Dinner
• Cuisine: American

★★★★★

5 from 9 reviews

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Description

Making Homemade Turkey Soup after your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner is super easy and a delicious way to use all the leftovers. This is the basic, easy homemade turkey soup recipe you remember your mom making. It's delicious!

Gluten FreeLow CarbPaleoWhole30

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Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

Turkey stock:

• Bones from your roast turkey

Homemade Turkey Soup:

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 4 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 large carrots, chopped
• 6 cups turkey stock
• Reserved turkey meat (see notes)
• Sea salt, to taste
• Optional: cooked egg noodles (omit for paleo + Whole30)
• Parsley, to serve

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Instructions

Turkey stock:

1. Remove all of the meat from the turkey and reserve 3 cups for the soup. If you've cooked your stuffing in the turkey, make sure to remove it all.
2. Break the roast turkey into 3 or 4 pieces small enough that they will fit in your largest pot. Fill the pot with cold water so that the water comes 2 inches above the bones. Bring the pot almost to a boil then reduce the heat so that it is barely simmering. You want the water to moving around, but not bubbling. Cook for 8-10 hours, leaving the lid off. (See notes if you'd like to use your crockpot instead.)
3. Strain the turkey stock through a colander into a large bowl and discard the solids. Strain once more through a fine mesh sieve. You can either use the turkey stock immediately or let it cool and refrigerate it for up to 3 days or freeze it for up to 3 months.

Homemade Turkey Soup:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes. Add the carrot and cook until it begins to brown in a few places, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the celery, turkey stock, and the reserved turkey meat to the pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, or until the carrots and celery are soft. Season to taste generously with sea salt.
3. If you're using the egg noodles, add them cooked to your soup bowl, ladle in the soup, and garnish with a little sprinkle of parsley.

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Notes

If you'd like to use your crockpot to make the turkey stock, put all the bones in, fill with water, and set the timer for 8-10 hours. I like to do this while I'm cleaning up from dinner so I don't have to store the bones. Here's a link to the full Crockpot Turkey Stock recipe.

I've placed this recipe in the Whole30, paleo, low-carb, and gluten-free categories. If you follow any of these diets, make sure to not add the optional egg noodles. The soup is delicious without them, too.

If you don't have a lot of turkey meat left, you can substitute chicken. Simmer 2 chicken breasts in 1 cup of turkey stock for 30 minutes then shred them with 2 forks.

Please don't recreate this recipe using store-bought stock, the flavor in this recipe is all about the delicious homemade stock.