Happy Thanksgiving!
We’re so grateful to have you as a part of our IWHI community! Today is the perfect day to celebrate with an easy and tasty recipe to help you use all of those turkey leftovers.
What are you grateful for this year?
Good friends?
A loving family?
A warm home?
Meaningful work?
Your health?
The health of your loved ones?
There is so much to be thankful for. Practicing gratitude each day has significant health benefits, including reducing depression in people with chronic pain (Ng & Wong, 2013).
Those of us who are very lucky just enjoyed giant turkey dinners, and now we’ll spend the next week or so trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers.
My suggestion… Turkey Tortilla Soup!
This recipe makes a lot of soup, enough to fill my giant slow cooker for parties. Freeze the leftovers for one of those nights when you didn’t plan for dinner, or everyone in the house has a cold.
For the broth:
Put the entire carcass of a roasted chicken or turkey into a slow cooker. Add some chopped carrots, onions, fennel, celery, or any other vegetable scraps. Be sure to add at least 2-3 cloves of raw garlic. Then, cover with cold, filtered water and add a splash of apple cider vinegar.
Simmer in the slow cooker for 24 hours to make the broth. Add a bunch of parsley for the last hour of simmering. (Add more water over the cooking time if it begins to evaporate.)
Strain the broth, and refrigerate. In a few hours you can easily skim the fat.
For the soup:
Mix 2 tbsp. each of cumin, chipotle chili powder, and garlic powder in a small bowl.
Place 3 lbs. of chicken thighs on parchment paper on baking sheets. Season with the spice mixture + sprinkle with fresh black pepper.
(Save any remaining spice mixture to add to the soup.)
Bake the chicken thighs in a 375-degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until just cooked through.
Or just use your leftover turkey… it’s already cooked!
Meanwhile… sauté 2 crushed garlic cloves, 2 chopped yellow onions, and 3 chopped bell peppers (use a red, a yellow, and green for a party!) in about a tbsp of olive oil, and any leftover spices from the chicken for a few minutes until the vegetables soften.
Add 1 can of mild fire roasted hatch chilies, and sauté for a few minutes more.
Then, once the chicken is cooked. Roughly slice it into bite-sized pieces, and add it to the sautéed vegetables. Mix for a minute or two until well combined.
Add the cooked vegetables and chicken to a slow cooker. Add 2, 15-ounce cans of organic black beans, and 1, 28-ounce can of organic diced fire-roasted tomatoes to the slow cooker. Stir to combine. Then, cover with the broth.
Cook on high in the slow cooker for 2-3 hours, or low for 4-6 hours.
Serve in bowls topped with any combination of toppings that you like. This is really the best part!
- Chopped cilantro (Use lots of cilantro to support your body to detox heavy metals. (Téllez-López, et al., 2017)
- Diced avocado
- Lime wedges
- Diced red onion
- Shredded cheese (If you’re not sensitive to dairy.)
- Corn tortilla chips (Look for brands that are GMO free!)
- Siete tortilla chips (if you’re grain free.)
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