Instant Pot Turkey Stock (or Broth)
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Make this homemade turkey stock recipe now for all your holiday needs later! Roasted turkey provides a richer flavor than fresh turkey bones or meat and using the electric pressure cooker extracts all the nutrients from the meat, bones, herbs, and vegetables without having to simmer all day. It's the best way to get your holiday meal prep ready!
Y'all have you been enjoying that Sweet Tea + Thyme now has video?! It's still blowing my mind, but I know you guys will enjoy having video directions along with the recipe.
Lord knows Thanksgiving and Christmas prep starts real early around here. I mean, I already have this turkey stock here for you to make before whole turkeys are even in the grocery store! Which you're probably asking, "Well, why and how am I supposed to make turkey stock now?!"
And honey, it's because I'm trying to get you ready! Having some delicious broth on hand make stirring a rich turkey gravy on Thanksgiving or whipping up a soup with the leftover turkey meat from the big day a breeze without having to wait for everyone to leave you the whole turkey carcass.
In this recipe we're using turkey wings (and can use other parts like the turkey neck, turkey legs, and gizzards (like the heart, but definitely not the liver!) for added nutrients, collagen, and flavor) since they're easy to get a hold of outside of turkey season, along with plenty of vegetables, some dried and fresh herbs, and a sixty minute stint in your Instant Pot.
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Making Turkey Stock/Broth
Stock was one of the first things I learned how to make in culinary school, we made chicken stock from scratch. We learned that stock is the fond de cuisine, literally 'the foundation of the kitchen'. It's a classic much-needed ingredient in so many different dishes, especially soups, stews, gravy, and for braising meat like short ribs or chuck for pot roast.
Homemade stock is a great thing to have on hand because of its versatility and the fact that you control what's in it, how much salt was added (which shouldn't be any at all! It's not a soup, after all.)
It used to be way more involved, skimming albumin off the top, creating sachets of herbs, blanching bones...it was a lot. But I'm here to show you that making your own stock and broth is really simple and easy, especially for home cooks.
Broth and stock are used interchangeably, there isn't much of a difference between them in usage so don't worry about it. Stock means that it was made with only bones, while broth means it was made with both bones and meat.
In this recipe, you can decide whether or not to roast the turkey parts before making the turkey broth. You can also roast the onions, leeks, carrots, and celery or give them a quick char in a cast iron skillet or right over your gas stove (carefully! Use metal tongs to hold the vegetables until they're charred a bit then set aside!). This does give a deeper depth of flavor, so if you have extra time, do it. It gives so much flavor.
Roasting the ingredients makes for a flavorful turkey stock without needing to use a leftover turkey carcass. It will change the color of your stock or broth, turning it into a brown broth or brown stock, so if you really want a white stock you'll have to blanch bones and not roast the bones.
My recipe isn't a lot of work, you can skip the roasting if you're short on time and simply throw everything into your Instant Pot on high pressure and let it go for 60 minutes. But if you have another 30 minutes to an hour, you won't regret getting some roasting done.
Ingredients
Turkey wings, legs, neck, etc. You can use leftover bones if you have them, but if this is for holiday prep or for whenever you want turkey stock, finding turkey wings or legs are much easier to find than whole turkeys at the store.
I prefer adding turkey wings no matter if I am making stock with or without a carcass because they are full of collagen and gelatin. If you can't find turkey wings, chicken wings will do just fine. Do not use smoked turkey parts, as they have too much salt and can give a weird flavor.
Roughly Chopped Yellow Onions, Celery, Leeks, Garlic, and Carrots. These need to be chopped large, smaller pieces would disintegrate and turn to mush.
Chop the celery and carrots in half, quarter the onions and leave the skin on, and make sure to only use the white parts of the leeks and rinse them thoroughly. Leeks grow in very sandy soil and tend to have some between the leaves. So when you cut the root and green parts off, separate the leaves and give them a good rinse.
Fresh parsley, a bay leaf or two, black peppercorns, thyme. Classically, stocks and broths have the herbs and even the vegetable scraps in bundles of tied up cheesecloth called sachets or tied together with butcher's twine which is called a bouquet garni. This is no longer common practice, everything is getting strained out through a fine sieve anyway!
Stocks don't have salt in them since their flavor comes from the ingredients within; they're often reduced down when used in other dishes like sauces, soup, demi-glaces, or while braising so adding salt would make it too salty. So stock tastes differently than a soup, please don't think it will taste like soup or anything you'd eat on its own like a bone broth.
How to Make Instant Pot Turkey Stock
In a roasting pan or rimmed baking sheet, you'll roast the turkey wings. I specifically like roasting them, but if I'm using legs as well, I'll leave those alone. I feel the collagen extraction is better for the turkey legs when they're fresh.
Dump the roasted (and fresh, if using) turkey parts into your electric pressure cooker, along with all the herbs, large pieces of vegetables, and peppercorns. Slice a whole head of garlic to expose the garlic cloves before tossing it in, it'll help extract more garlic flavor. Not a big fan of garlic? Use only a few cloves and don't peel them.
Cover everything with cold water and set the instant pot to manual, high pressure, for 60 minutes. Let it do its thing and depressurize naturally and strain your delicious stock through a fine-mesh sieve, coffee filter, or a cheesecloth over
Move the broth into jars and chill for a couple of hours to overnight, so the fat can rise to the top and solidify and you can scoop it off. Skimming the fat off your stock is important for versatility and also for canning, as excess fat can lead to improper seals and spoiling.
Once the broth has been skimmed, you can freeze it for up to 3 months or keep it in the fridge for up to one week.
Does Instant Pot Stock Gel?
I have found my stocks and broth always gets that jelly-like consistency that comes with great stock, and that's because I know what bones to put into it and how to extract as much of the collagen as possible.
The best bones from the turkey are in the wings and neck. I also highly recommend adding chicken feet to the stock. I know, I know, super weird! But chicken feet has the highest amount of collagen, which gives you that awesome gel and jiggle and that lovely full-bodied texture you want in soups and sauces.
Using the pressure cooker helps heat the bones and ingredients to above boiling temperatures without bringing the water to a boil physically (bubbling, rumbling, bouncing the ingredients around and emulsifying the fat, etc.), so it makes the stock faster that way and doesn't destroy the nutrients in the stock or broth.
Pro-Tip: do not manually release the pressure, let it go naturally. This is mostly for safety reasons, since the pressure cooker is full of extremely hot liquid and the quick release can cause it to spray from the valve. Natural release can also extract more nutrients and collagen as it slowly depressurizes.
What to use Turkey Stock in
Turkey stock is a big part of the majority of Americans' Thanksgiving, as making turkey gravy to go along with your Thanksgiving meal is a must (at least in my home!).
It's also perfect for using in other turkey recipes like turkey soup, turkey pot pie, chili, and basically anything you would use a low-sodium chicken broth in.
How to Store
I find using large canning jars is a great way to store large amounts of stock, these amounts can be used as braising liquid or in soups or stew. 16 oz or 32 oz jars work perfectly.
Another ingenious storage idea is using silicone ice cube trays. You'll need enough ice cube trays to keep a good amount. Having a bunch of small servings of stock helps deglaze a pan, add extra moisture when reheating leftovers or freezer meals, or using to make quick gravies or sauce without having to thaw a ton of stock.
Other Holiday Recipes:
- Foolproof, Super Juicy Spatchcock Turkey
- Southern Baked Soul Food Macaroni and Cheese
- Authentic Southern Slow-Cooked Green Beans
- Grandma Reid's Southern Candied Yams
- Sister Schubert's Yeast Rolls Copycat Recipe
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📖 Recipe
Instant Pot Turkey Stock / Broth
Ingredients
- 5 pounds turkey wings neck, legs or carcass
- 2 medium carrots peeled and chopped in half
- 2 celery stalks washed and chopped in half
- 1 leek white part only, chopped in half lengthwise
- 1 large yellow onion skin on and quartered
- 1 head garlic halved horizontally
- 6 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 bunch fresh parsley
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- On a baking sheet, dry off fresh turkey wings with a paper towel and season with a little oil, kosher salt, and pepper. Roast the wings in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the wings are golden brown with crispy skin.
- Put the vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, and turkey bones/parts into an 8 qt Instant Pot or electric pressure cooker, then cover them in cold water to the fill line of the Instant Pot.
- Securely lock the lid onto your electric pressure cooker with the vent set to 'sealing' then press 'manual' and set the timer to 60 minutes. Let stock pressure cook for the entire time and naturally depressurize (do NOT Quick Release or manually release!) for about 30 minutes. The pressure valve MUST be down before you open the lid.
- Strain the turkey broth into a large bowl with a fine mesh strainer to remove the bones and other ingredients. You could also line the sieve/strainer with a cheesecloth or coffee filter.
- Let the stock cool down for 30 minutes on the counter before putting into lidded jars and putting into the refrigerator to chill for 4 hours to overnight. This is to help the fat rise to the surface so it's easier to scrape off.
- Skim the fat off the top of the stock. This fat can be saved to be used in the future as you would use oil in a recipe, just put it into a freezer-safe container or zip-top bag and freeze for future use.
- Store the skimmed stock in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for 3 months.
