Here's everything worth knowing about turkey stock and how to pick it, what it is, how to store it, and what to use instead, plus 21 recipes to cook tonight.

What is turkey stock?

Turkey stock is the savory liquid you get by simmering a turkey carcass and aromatic vegetables in water until the bones give up their flavor and body.

For most cooks it is a once-a-year project: the stripped frame from the holiday bird, turned into the base for soup and gravy instead of going in the trash.

It tastes like a richer, slightly gamier chicken stock. The bigger bones and the roasted skin give it more body and a deeper, more savory edge than a bird that went into the pot raw.

For the general stock rules, including the no-hard-boil one, see the parent stock page. This page is about putting that holiday carcass to work.

From Carcass to Pot

The morning after the feast, break the picked-over carcass into a few pieces so it fits your biggest pot. Throw in the neck and any wing tips or bones left on the platter.

Because the bird was already roasted, half the flavor work is done. Those browned bones give you a brown stock without a second trip to the oven.

Toss in a quartered onion with a couple of carrots and some celery, then a bay leaf and a few peppercorns.

If you saved the giblets and did not use them in gravy, the heart and gizzard add depth here. Leave the liver out, since it turns the stock bitter.

Cover everything with cold water and bring it up slowly.

Simmer and Skim

Skim the foam that rises in the first half hour, then hold a bare simmer. Turkey bones sit between chicken and beef, so give them longer than a chicken carcass: about three to four hours pulls full flavor and a good amount of gelatin from those big frame bones.

Strain it through a fine sieve and chill it. A strong batch sets to a soft jelly and throws a firm fat cap you can lift off the next day. Save a little of that turkey fat to start the soup or to enrich the gravy.

Soup and Gravy

This is what the stock was made for. The classic next-day move is soup, where the stock and the shredded leftover meat carry the whole bowl, as in Leftover Turkey Barley Soup.

It is also the liquid that turns a roux into real gravy, and the moisture that brings stuffing together. A pot pie leans on it for both the filling sauce and the flavor, like this Leftover Turkey Pot Pie.

If you are baking the dressing on the side, a ladle of homemade stock beats water every time. The Sausage, Apple & Cranberry Turkey Stuffing is a good place to spend it.

Buying and Storing

Turkey stock is hard to buy outside the weeks around the holidays, so most cooks make their own or reach for chicken stock as the stand-in. Chicken is the closest swap by far, just a shade lighter in flavor.

Homemade keeps about four days in the fridge. Beyond that, freeze it in flat bags or in cubes you can drop into a pan.

It holds for around three months frozen, which is handy: make a big batch from the holiday bird and you have soup base into late winter. Leave a little headroom in the container, since stock expands as it freezes.

Quick facts

In Chinese

火鸡股票

British (UK) term

Turkey stock

en français

de dinde

en español

Turquía stock

Recipes using turkey stock

There are 21 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 21 recipes