Money-Saving Recipe: Grandad's Famous Carcass Soup!

It's good for what ails you!

One of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving celebration is the leftovers!  How wonderful it is that the Lord not only blesses us, but He blesses us abundantly!!  Never is that more true than at Thanksgiving. 

When I was growing up, all my relatives would get together, and we would have a tremendous amount of food.  Naturally, there were leftovers.   Since my parents were Depression Babies, nothing ever went to waste.  So the next day, Mom and Dad would make the Best Soup Ever, lovingly dubbed “Carcass Soup,” in reverence to the poor turkey carcass that gave itself for our Thanksgiving feast.

This particular soup was eagerly anticipated by us hungry young-uns, and the old-uns alike, so the recipe became one of those passed-down-through-the generations type of recipes.  Now, no Thanksgiving celebration could be complete with my own children without a large pot of Grandad’s Famous Carcass Soup simmering on the back burner on Black Friday.

Since becoming an adult, I discovered that many people cook up a juicy twenty-five pound turkey on Thanksgiving Day only to turn around and throw the carcass away, or to feed it to their cats!!  Making Carcass Soup is a great, tasty way to be good stewards of what God has given to us!

Here’s the recipe:

1 Carcass of turkey, or deli chicken, or other roasted chicken

1 c chopped onion

1 c chopped celery

1 T salt

1/2 t pepper

4-6 c water

2 T powdered chicken boullion

½ c barley (optional)

Combine above.  Bring to boil and simmer until meat is falling off the bones.  Remove carcass.  Add 2 c egg noodles to broth and continue simmering until tender.  Meanwhile, remove chicken from carcass & add back to broth.  Serve or cool to skim the fat from the top; then reheat and serve.

Enjoy!  If you let me know you tried it and liked it, I’ll tell Grandad!  It would make his day.

Rolling on with a full tummy,