Family Recipe: Turkey Barley Soup

Foodwise, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! But after a few days, the thought of eating AGAIN, isn’t as appetizing. So make Turkey Soup! This is based on my Uncle Bob’s recipe, which was originally my grandmother Rosalind Johnson’s recipe. The recipe calls for using the bones from the turkey to make turkey stock for the soup. If you want to skip this step and buy turkey stock at the supermarket, that’s fine too. They don’t always sell it, so you can substitute chicken stock if you need to.

For Stock:
Turkey Bones
1 big onion (you’ll strain this out later)
5 stalks of celery (you’ll strain this out later)
Tablespoon of sea salt

For Soup
1 lb pearl barley
1/2 green split peas
1/2 lb yellow split peas
1/4 lb lentils
1/4 navy beans
5-6 stalks of celery
Optional: mushrooms
4-6 carrots or bag of organic pre-cut baby carrots
Beef Boullion (you need 1 packet per quart of soup), so most likely you’ll use at least 12 or so cubes. You can use a whole jar of Wyler’s Beef Boullion (3.75) to a 12 quarts of liquid
Water (after you add all the ingredients, add water to reach 12 qts).

Optional: Left over turkey to add to cooked soup.

Stock Stage:

Boil the bones from 1 big turkey, add the onion and stalks of celery, simmer for 2-4 hours.

While it’s simmering, soak the dried vegetables and beans for the soup in water in another container. Strain out the solids and keep the stock.

Then start the soup by adding the strained stock to a 16 quart pot. Add the dried vegetables, beans, celery, carrots, and bouillion cubes.

Simmer for 3 to 4 hours (4 is better). Give it a stir to make sure the barley doesn’t stick to the bottom.

You can add leftover pieces of turkey to the soup as it cooks for the last 20 minutes. This was a big hit with my kids, who are super picky. The baby, who barely eats, loved it. I put the warm soup on his tray and let him use his hands. You may want to add more water to portions as you serve it (to thin it out a little).