Slow Cooker Turkey and Dumplings

Post-Thanksgiving quiet. The parents have gone home. The apartment smells like leftover turkey and the particular emptiness that follows a full house. I repurposed the turkey into three meals: turkey congee (rice porridge, the ultimate comfort), turkey onigiri, and turkey miso soup, which worked better this year because I used a lighter miso and let the turkey flavor lead. Waste nothing. Use everything. Mottainai. Fumiko's ethic, adopted as my own.

I wrote a Thanksgiving recap for the blog — not the drama, just the food. The miso-glazed turkey recipe. The yuzu tart. The takikomi gohan. The readers responded with enthusiasm — the turkey recipe alone got eighty-two comments, people saying they would make it next year, people asking about the miso-to-butter ratio, people thanking me for showing them that Japanese flavors belong on a Thanksgiving table. I thought about that phrase: "belong on a Thanksgiving table." The idea that some flavors belong and some do not, that the table has rules about who sits down and what gets served. My whole life is about sitting at tables where people think my food does not belong and serving it anyway. Miso belongs at Thanksgiving. I belong at every table. So does Fumiko. So does Miya. The belonging is not given. It is claimed.

Miya is nineteen months old. She is speaking in short sentences now — "Mama make soup," "I want rice," "Cat is sleeping." The sentences are simple and correct and each one is a miracle of cognition, a brain building language from nothing, the way dashi is built from water and seaweed and time. I record her sentences in my journal. I want to remember the first time she said "I want rice" with the specific cadence of a Nakamura woman making a demand of the universe.

December approaches. The holiday machine revs up. I am already planning: Christmas with the Callahans, New Year's with Fumiko's recipes, the osechi preparation that starts in mid-December and runs through January first. The calendar of food never stops. The seasons turn. The recipes repeat. The repetition is not monotony. The repetition is the music. The same song, played with slightly different hands, year after year, generation after generation. The song continues. I am singing it now. Miya will sing it next.

Turkey congee and miso soup carried us through the first days after the holiday, but this — slow cooker turkey and dumplings — is the dish I make when I want the leftover bird to feel like a celebration rather than a cleanup. It has the same unhurried, use-everything spirit of mottainai: the carcass gives up its last warmth into the broth, the shredded meat that didn’t make it onto the Thanksgiving platter finally finds its purpose, and by the time those dumplings are done steaming on top, the apartment smells like something intentional again. Miya asked for “more soup” twice. That’s all the endorsement I need.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 5 hours | Total Time: 5 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 cups cooked turkey, shredded (light or dark meat, or a mix)
4 cups turkey broth or low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup water
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
2 tbsp cornstarch whisked with 2 tbsp cold water (slurry)
For the dumplings:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup whole milk
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Instructions

Build the base. Add the shredded turkey, broth, water, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, thyme, sage, salt, and pepper to the slow cooker. Stir to combine.
Slow cook. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours or on HIGH for 2 to 3 hours, until the vegetables are tender and the broth is fragrant.
Thicken the broth. In the last 30 minutes of cooking, switch the slow cooker to HIGH if not already there. Stir in the cornstarch slurry and let cook uncovered for 10 minutes until the broth thickens slightly.
Make the dumpling batter. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the milk and melted butter and stir with a fork until just combined — do not overmix. The batter should be thick and slightly shaggy.
Add the dumplings. Drop heaping tablespoons of dumpling batter directly onto the surface of the simmering soup, spacing them slightly apart. You should get 10 to 12 dumplings.
Steam and finish. Place the lid back on the slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 20 to 25 minutes without lifting the lid, until the dumplings are cooked through and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Taste the broth and adjust salt as needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls, making sure each serving gets 2 dumplings and plenty of broth. Best eaten the day it is made.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooker Turkey and Dumplings — Mottainai, or the Art of Wasting Nothing