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Put your leftover turkey to work in this quick and easy Turkey Noodle Soup. It’s simple but delicious and perfect year-round. Also great with chicken!
Recipe ingredients:
Ingredient notes:
- Broth: You can use either chicken broth or turkey broth in this recipe.
Step-by-step instructions:
- In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, heat some olive oil. Then add chopped onion, carrots, and celery. Sauté the vegetables until softened.
- Then pour in the broth, herbs, and the turkey. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook until the vegetables are fork-tender—maybe 15 minutes or so. That’s it!
- If you want noodles, stir them in uncooked. Add extra pasta, if you like—but don’t add too many, otherwise they’ll soak up all your broth and you’ll be left with mush.
- Cook the noodles for as long as it takes for them to soften, anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes.
- Garnish with parsley, adjust the seasoning if needed, then pour into bowls and serve.
Recipe tips and variations:
- Leftovers: Cool completely, then store in the fridge and eat within 4 days.
- Freezer: Freeze for up to 3 months to have on hand for soup emergencies.
- Slow cooker: This takes a lot longer than the stove-top, but I don’t mind if you don’t. Add the broth, turkey, carrots, celery, onion, bay leaves, and thyme to the slow cooker. Cover, and cook on HIGH for 3 hours, or LOW for 6 hours. Stir in the egg noodles and cook 15 minutes longer on HIGH until the egg noodles are tender.
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Leftover Turkey Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 1 carrot peeled and chopped
- 1 celery rib chopped
- 8 cups (2 quarts) chicken broth or turkey broth (see note 1)
- 3 cups cooked turkey chopped or shredded
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme minced, or ½ teaspoon dried
- 1 bay leaf
- 8 ounces wide egg noodles
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- fresh parsley minced, for garnish
Instructions
- In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in broth, turkey, thyme, and bay leaf. Bring to simmer and cook until vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.
- Stir in noodles and cook until tender, about 5 minutes longer. Remove from heat, season to taste with salt and pepper, and garnish with fresh parsley.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Broth: You can use either chicken broth or turkey broth in this recipe.
- Leftovers: Cool completely, then store in the fridge and eat within 4 days.
- Freezer: Freeze for up to 3 months to have on hand for soup emergencies.Â
- Slow cooker: This takes a lot longer than the stove-top, but I don’t mind if you don’t. Add the broth, turkey, carrots, celery, onion, bay leaves, and thyme to the slow cooker. Cover, and cook on HIGH for 3 hours, or LOW for 6 hours. Stir in the egg noodles and cook 15 minutes longer on HIGH until the egg noodles are tender.
Nutrition
Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.
Thank you for sharing this delicious and easy recipe. I’ve made the soup twice so far and have saved this recipe to use again and again!
Hi Shelley! You’re so welcome! I’m glad you love it! – Meggan
I had to change this up a bit as I’m gluten free, so I used the closest thing I had on hand in gluten free form. It came out truly amazing! Thank you for a delicious recipe that I’ll make again and again!
You’re so welcome, Stacey! I’m glad you loved it! – Meggan
does the recipe call for 8 oz cooked noodles or uncooked noodles?
Hi Iri, thank you so much for the question, sorry about the confusion. It’s 8 ounces of uncooked egg noodles. Sorry again and I hope you love this soup! – Meggan
I’m making this as I write. Love it just as written. I cook noodles and keep them out of soup till ready to eat. Soup and noodles will last longer in fridge if kept separate. Sometimes making a large batch, it will spoil with noodles added, if not quickly eaten up! 😉
Finally pulled my leftover Turkey out of the freezer to make this. So easy and tasty! I had some leftover heavy cream in the freezer (about 1/2 cup) that I threw in as well. Gave it a nice creamy texture and taste!
Hi Nelda, sounds delicious! Going to try that myself! – Meggan
This is the second recipe I’ve tried from this source. I loved both. I just signed up for the newsletter, can’t wait to try more options.
Thank you for signing up, Joyce! I’m glad you loved the recipes so far, and I hope you love what is to come! Take care! – Meggan