Quarantine Cooking with Emma – White Turkey Chili

Hey all, I’m Emma, Senior Clerk at Steele Memorial. When the library is open you see me at checkout desks, running art & craft programs, and hosting movie nights.

I cook and bake for fun and to relax. My dogs love being taste testers for dog-safe meals I make too, so they’re cool with it, as are my family and neighbors, haha. I’ve definitely been doing a lot of meal prep with the self-quarantine happening. I thought I’d share some easy recipes I’m making during this time. Some are a little time intensive, but, most of us have time on our hands now. Cooking from scratch is also another reason to get away from the TV for a little bit. I know I need to break away from binge watching sometimes.

I made a bone-in turkey breast in the slow cooker last week.
The White Turkey Chili is one of 6 meals/recipes I have made from it.
(The 6 include: broth, chili, turkey dinner, leftover turkey dinner as pierogi filling with homemade pierogi dough, egg salad with turkey, and salsa turkey.)

The first thing I did with the cooked turkey breast was to separate the meat, but I left the broth, bones, and skin in the slow cooker. I added about 4 cups of water, an onion cut into eighths (skin on), 2 rough chopped celery stalks, and half a bag of baby carrots. I also added garlic powder, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and crushed red pepper. I let that cook on low for a couple hours, then left on warm for 8 hours. After it cooled, I strained through a mesh strainer into a bowl, throwing away all the bits and cooked veggies (they’re flavorless now). With that I had roughly 8 cups of homemade broth for the freezer.

The second thing I made from this turkey breast was the White Turkey Chili.

I used the “White Chicken Chili” recipe from Cooking Classy,

https://www.cookingclassy.com/white-chicken-chili/, for reference. I made changes for what I had on hand.

White Chicken Chili Recipe

My substitutions from the original recipe were to use:

  • garlic powder instead of fresh cloves,
  • ~ 4 cups of the aforementioned turkey broth instead of canned chicken broth,
  • a drained can of diced tomato with green chilies instead of just chilies,
  • 1 large, de-seeded jalapeno diced small
  • no paprika or coriander because none on hand,
  • chili powder instead of cayenne
  • a drained can of sweet corn
  • instead of canned cannellini beans, I used dry White Northern Beans (about half of a 32 oz bag), soaked overnight in the fridge,
  • 16 oz of diced cooked turkey breast,
  • no lime juce or cilantro because none on hand

IngredientsI cooked in my 6 qt dutch oven. Bring everything to a boil stirring often. When you get it to a rolling boil, lower the heat to simmer, stirring occasionally. The beans will take a little bit to cook through, taste test every now and then. My chili took about 2 hours on simmer.

With the changes I made this recipe to be about 16 cups of chili.

Good way to fill the freezer!

White Turkey Chili

My next post will be Buttermilk Cheddar Chive Drop Biscuits, a great dipper for your chili!

2 Replies to “Quarantine Cooking with Emma – White Turkey Chili”

  1. What an excellent article. Extremely well thought out and intuitive. Your easy to follow step by step instructions gives me absolute confidence that even someone like me with little experience can accomplish this meal! I am very excited to try it and CAN’T WAIT to see your next meal.
    Truly awesome and amazing!
    5 stars!