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.

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

I 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!

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