This soup is excellent for fall since it has a thick flavor and strong spice, bacon, and onion flavors.
| Prep Time: | 35 mins |
| Cook Time: | 8 hrs |
| Additional Time: | 8 hrs |
| Total Time: | 16 hrs 35 mins |
| Servings: | 15 |
| Yield: | 5 1/2 quarts |
Ingredients
- 4 quarts turkey broth
- 3 cubes chicken bouillon
- 1 pound thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch square pieces
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 pound cubed cooked turkey
- 1 red onion, sliced
- 1 cup barley
- 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 pound okra, sliced
- ½ bunch fresh parsley, chopped
Instructions
- Combine turkey broth and chicken bouillon in a slow cooker.
- Place bacon in a skillet over medium heat; add garlic and black pepper. Cook and stir until bacon is crispy, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate; blot to remove as much fat as possible.
- Stir bacon mixture into the slow cooker. Add turkey, red onion, barley, rosemary, salt, and Italian seasoning.
- Cook, stirring every half hour, on Low for 7 1/2 hours (or high for 3 1/2 hours). Stir okra and parsley into soup and continue cooking for 30 minutes more.
- Cool soup to room temperature and refrigerate, 8 hours to overnight. Skim any solid fat off the top and heat soup on the stovetop.
- If you use the turkey drippings, be sure to remove the fat from top of the soup after cooling in the fridge overnight. After skimming the fat, it is helpful to place a paper towel on top of the liquid to remove additional fat that you can’t skim off. Discard the skimmed fat and the fat-saturated paper towels. Drain the broth from the bag or pan used to cook a turkey and place in a 6-quart slow cooker with 4 quarts water (or use 128 ounces chicken broth without adding water.)
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 185 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 14 g |
| Cholesterol | 40 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 16 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 1849 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 7 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This turned out really good and was a great way to utilize the homemade stock and leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. I did make a couple of changes. I had everything to make this except for the red onion. I did have green onion though and so green it was. My next change was due to personal preference. While the bacon would have added flavor to the base of the soup, I despise “wobbly” bacon. I used the crumbled bacon as a topper instead. Due to not using red onion and the bacon not being in the soup I felt it needed color. I added sliced carrots and must admit they work very nicely in this soup. I know a lot of people like stewed tomatoes with their okra and I think tomatoes would work well in here too. This was a really good soup and a definite keeper. The only reason I’m giving it a 4 instead of a 5 is the treatment of the bacon.