Recently we butchered our remaining turkeys, Mr. Christmas and Mrs. Easter. They were never good foragers, and had grown extremely large while stealing our chickens’ supplementary grain. We decided to go ahead and process both birds rather than continue to pay for their feed any longer.
But then- what to do with all that turkey?
The process for handling large amounts of leftover meat efficiently is essentially the same no matter the type of meat. I’ll describe to you my process so that you can glean some useful tips for handling your own leftover bonanza!
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Mr. Christmas was the largest of the two birds, 36 pounds fully dressed (that is, after removing the feathers and gutting the bird). David deboned the meat from Mr. Christmas and ground it all up using our home meat grinder. Yes, those countertops are truly bright blue! 🙂
Then, he used our FoodSaver vacuum sealer to package the raw meat in one-pound portions for our freezer. (Note that the link is to a different, less expensive model, but they are all pretty similar. We have had several models of FoodSaver brand sealers over the years.) The resulting 23 pounds of ground turkey on hand in the freezer will keep us from having to buy ground meat for many, many weeks.
He then roasted the bones on our smoker so that our planned stock would be more flavorful.
Mrs. Easter was a more manageable size, at 27 pounds. She went on our smoker. Here she is, fully cooked, resting on a full size cookie sheet!!
After dinner, David again picked all the meat from the carcass. He put some of the bones into our slow-cooker, covered the bones with water, added a little apple cider vinegar to help leach minerals from the bones, and set it on low to simmer away until the next day.
When that first batch of stock was finished, I strained out all of the bones, leftover meat pieces and small bits and ladled the stock into three quart-sized freezer containers. Then, I repeated the process of filling the slow-cooker with a fresh batch of stock. This process should be repeated until you have used up all of the bones, etc.
The stock can be frozen in pint and quart containers for later. You can also use it up quickly without freezing it:
- Use it as pasta cooking water (I like to use 50% water, 50% stock when filling my pasta pot)
- Cook your dinner grains in it. Stock makes white rice rich and flavorful. You don’t have to dilute the stock for this unless you want to.
- Prepare a soup or stew using the stock as the primary liquid
While the stock is simmering away in the background, begin processing the leftover meat right away.
You have basically two options for freezing cooked meat and stock.
- Freeze chopped, cooked meats in one pound increments, ideally using a vacuum sealer. I have also frozen chopped turkey and a small amount of turkey stock together in zippered freezer bags, frozen flat and stacked.
- Further process the cooked meat into fully-cooked meals that can be both eaten immediately and frozen for the future. In my opinion, this is the most valuable use of your cooking time and foot budget and should be done regularly.
To begin the process for option 2, I sat down and flipped through my collection of recipes and notes, with the intention of choosing from the following (note that this selection process should happen as soon as possible after the initial meal that generates the leftover meat (ideally, before this meal):
- A meal to cook for dinner right away that would use both broth/stock and turkey meat
- A meal to cook that would serve enough for dinner the following night and leave leftovers to be stored in the freezer. Ideally this is something I have been meaning to try making or just to try freezing fully cooked.
- Freezer-friendly meals that we have made in the past. When I cook meals solely for the freezer, I prefer to use tried-and true recipes so that we don’t have an unpleasant surprise instead of a helpful treat.
You’ll want to look at your planned recipes and calculate the amount of meat needed vs. what you have available. Try to choose as many recipes, or multiple batches of recipes, that will use up all of your estimated leftover meat. I also made a note of some promising extra recipes, just in case. A kitchen scale (such as this one) is a huge help when scaling ingredient lists and cooking in bulk.
The next step is to make an overall shopping list and head to the store, if necessary. Again, this is best done before your initial meal, particularly because you can combine your shopping trips and buy for both the initial meal and for the leftover processing.
Next, plan ahead to spend an evening or an afternoon cooking. You don’t actually have to set aside separate time to do this, but if you have small children underfoot like I do, the most efficient way to cook in bulk is to spend a few hours alone in the kitchen. I look at it as an investment in my future- one evening spent cooking can produce multiple evenings of “cook’s night off”.
Before you actually start cooking, look at your chosen recipes to see which will require the longest active prep time and inactive cooking time. Start by preparing the recipe with the longest inactive cooking time first. This will allow you to work on one recipe at a time without staying up late into the night! Work quickly, with as few distractions as possible.
Once the meals are finished, cool slightly and package in manageable portions. Note that quart sizes are my preferred portion size for full meals. This will typically feed our family once with a small amount of leftover food. However, if you are freezing a sauce or something that will require some additional ingredients before serving, consider freezing in pint sizes too. You can always thaw more than one container if needed.
Cool on the table or counter for a while (so you don’t heat up your fridge or freezer), then label. Cool the packaged food as much as you can before you put it into the freezer. I sometimes cool on the counter for a while, then refrigerate overnight before freezing. Do what works for your kitchen.
These are the containers I prefer to use when freezing in bulk. I’ve linked to quart, pint and one-cup sizes. I like them because they are easy to fill, inexpensive, reusable, stackable and the lids for all three sizes are interchangeable. I have also used gallon Ziploc freezer bags to save on freezer space. If I ever decide to exclusively use freezer bags, I have my eye on this potentially useful item. I’d love to hear your feedback on easy, mess-free ways to fill the bags!
Some of you have asked me about my freezer situation. Yes, I do have a full size standing freezer. It’s extremely useful and I really recommend finding a way to have some extra freezer space. One way to gain some freezer real estate without purchasing a second unit could be to eat up all the ice cream!!!
Some people have an extra refrigerator/freezer combo in their garage. Small chest freezers are fairly inexpensive. If you have the floor space, you can frequently find full sized used chest freezers for very little money (check out Craigs list!). In our case, we have limited floor space and the standing freezer couldn’t be more convenient.
Like anything new, this process will become second nature with practice. Take it easy on yourself the first time- start small (not with a 27 pound turkey like Ms. Easter!). Use a familiar recipe. Also, try it out when you aren’t tired from implementing a big family holiday dinner. Try buying a small turkey for a quiet Saturday and putting the leftovers into your freezer that evening or the next day.
I hope this has been helpful to you! I’d love to hear your feedback and questions!