Not sure what to do with your turkey leftovers? Instant Pot Turkey Leftover Soup is just what you need! Don’t let any of that bird go to waste.
Turkey: Dark Meat or Light Meat?
Since finally catching up on the podcast, My Dad Wrote a Porno (seriously one of the funniest things out there), I found a really interesting podcast called The Fridge Light. It’s a behind the scenes look at parts of the food industry that are not-so-common-knowledge.
The reason I bring it up is that there was an episode called Dark Meat/Light Meat, which is very appropriate at Thanksgiving.
I’ve mentioned before that my family is definitely about the more flavorful dark meat. So if you like the light meat, you’re more than welcome to come to my family dinner!
End of Year: How Much Better Was 2017 than 2016?!!
It’s getting to be that time of year again. The shorts are gone, the nipplyness is in the air, and the year is winding down.
I don’t always deal with the fall very well since I’m mourning the end of my favorite season and no longer feeling the warmth of the sun on my naked skin. I need access to a hot tub to get that warmth on me.
Anyway, it’s about that time where I look back at this year and what I’ve accomplished, and what I haven’t. It’s been a cool year for sure.
There was all the fun stuff that I got to do! Who else saw the solar eclipse totality? I did some camping this summer, met some cool people, drank some great wine, made and ate some incredible food.
I lost 20 lbs of fat that I’d gained during my injury… and then put some back on (it’ll be gone before the New Year). All-in-all, it’s been a pretty cool year.
See What TPD Has Done!
The Primal Desire did a lot too: We discovered and started selling Beautycounter (side note: they’ve got some great deals on this weekend!). I’m redesigning the site (though I wish that was already done). And…
We’re finished our first recipe book!!!!!
I’m not going to go into the details right now, but you can be one of the first to pick that up today: “I’m Hungry! What Should I Snack On?”
We’re pretty proud of it! It’s going to be a great tool for paleo challenges, New Year’s resolutions, etc.
What else? OH!
This weekend we’re going to hit our first 1,000,000 pageviews!
I realize that to compare that to other websites, it’s not a big deal, but for us it’s a pretty incredible milestone!
Do you remember 20-30 years ago how incredibly large that number was? I used to think that 1 million was such an unfathomable quantity!
So: LOTS of stuff to be thankful for! Including learning how fast and easy making bone broth in the Instant Pot (they’ve got some killer sales on this weekend too) is! And making this Instant Pot Turkey Leftover Soup could not be easier… well, it could be if someone else made it and brought it to you, but that’s it. And what a great way to use leftover turkey light meat!
What are you thankful for this year? What were your big wins?

Instant Pot Turkey Leftover Soup
- Total Time: 20 min (10 min inactive)
- Yield: 3.5 L 1x
Ingredients
- 2–2 1/2 L turkey broth
- 2–3 cups leftover turkey meat (cut into bite-sized pieces)
- 1/2–1 lb baby potatoes (halfed)
- 2 large carrots (chopped)
- 2 celery sticks (chopped)
- 1 med-large yellow onion (chopped)
- 1–2 cups dark leafy greens (eg. bok choy, Swiss chard, kale, collard greens, spinach)(chopped)
- salt and pepper to taste
Optional:
- 2 large leeks (chopped)
- 1/2 cup pearl barley or rice
- 1–2 spicy pepper (diced)
Instructions
- Put potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, turkey, (optional) leeks, spicy pepper, and barley or rice in the Instant Pot.
- Fill with turkey broth until Instant Pot is 3.5 L full.
- Secure lid and under high pressure (soup setting works), cook for 7-10 minutes (depending on how you like your carrots).
- Allow to natural pressure release so as not to spray soup all over your kitchen.
- Add in leafy greens while still hot to wilt leaves.
- Add salt and pepper to taste and enjoy with hot sauce, if you like.
Notes
I love Frank’s Red Hot Sauce on my turkey soup.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 7-10 min
- Method: Instant Pot
- Cuisine: Soup
Soup from the turkey leftovers is one of my favorite parts of the holidays! I always make the biggest batch possible and freeze some so I can have soup for weeks. I haven’t put potatoes in mine yet, so thanks for the great recipe inspiration!
I can’t wait til I’m drinking the next bird at Christmas!
I pretty much made something really similar to do with our leftover turkey! They best post-thanksgiving meal.
I’m in love with my Instant Pot and really appreciate another easy recipe! Looks so good!
Just got an InstantPot. Thanks for the easy recipe. YUM!!
Great job on your recipe book!!! 🙂 Love this cozy recipe!
Thank you! We’re so glad to have it out there!
Oh man! No more left over turkey this year… NEXT YEAR!
What about Christmas Tina?
This soup looks so nourishing and tasty – and congrats on your recipe book!
Holy cow those pageviews are amazing! Congrats on both that and the book! The soup sounds yummy too!
Thanks Emily!!
Congratulations on the milestone! This soup looks great!!
Thanks Becky!
So much to celebrate!!! Congrats you two!
Thanks Cristina!
Love how simple it is to use instant pot to recreate leftover meals. SO delicious !
Congrats on hitting 1 million pageviews and I love that you made this in your Instant Pot. I have some turkey in the freezer leftover from Thanksgiving and this would be the perfect way to use it.
We tried this recipe and the soup was excellent. I typically go through a long process each year when I make turkey soup. This recipe was amazingly easy. And, the soup was so satisfying and flavorful
That’s beautiful. Thanks for letting us know Bob! We’re glad you enjoyed it. I hope your Thanksgiving was as good!
Love easy Instant Pot recipes like this! You can never have too many…
You got that right!
The ratios and time were all perfect for this recipe and the bone broth for it. Unfortunately it really lacked any flavour. i ended up adding quite a bit of better than BOUILLON – Turkey, after the pressure released to add some taste to this soup. It DEFINITELY needs more seasoning. The carrots and potatoes were perfect!
★★★
Oh Linda! That is tragic. No flavor is not how we roll. Which is why I have some questions as to how that could have happened. The most obvious one being: what was the broth that you used? The recipe that we have linked in the ingredients, or some store-bought, no-flavor, weird-ingredient stuff? Actually, that is my only guess.
But using a flavorful broth is key, or else you’ll need to do something like adding a bunch more seasoning.
Thanks for sharing your experience, and please let us know what you used.
I still have turkey leftover and your IP turkey soup sounds great, but im doing AIP, donyou have a suggestion of a repLacement for the potatoes? Thats awesome and crazy that you eat Franks on your soup. Lol. ill have to try it whenever my guts all healed and i can have hotsauce again
Hi Brianna, cauliflower chunks could work, can you have cabbage? Giving up hot sauce was one of the harder AIP things for me too. I added sumac spice to a bunch of things. But healing your gut is so important!!
Let us know how it goes!
Holley
I can have cabbage, why? . And this sumac is AIP approved.? It sounds Delicious, i love love love limes so tHis might be a good sPice for me. My Ipad WOULDN’T let me reply so i had to make a new comment, sorry
Some people have problems with cabbage, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables. But if you don’t yay! Sumac was wonderful for me on AIP, try it out and listen to your body!