Creole Turtle Soup

This is a classic Creole turtle soup from New Orleans. It's super easy to make... once you have a turtle. See the recipe notes for some suggestions.

Recipe by Hank Shaw on January 21, 2014

Prep time: PT20M

Cook time: PT180M

Total time: PT200M

Rating

4.87 stars (38 reviews)

Keywords

Creole, soups, turtle

Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds turtle meat on the bone, (or 1 1/2 pounds boneless)
4 bay leaves
Salt
1 cup flour
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 celery stalks, (minced)
1 green bell pepper, (minced)
1 1/2 cups minced onion
4 garlic cloves, (minced)
One 18- ounce can crushed tomatoes
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne, (or to taste)
1/2 cup dry sherry
1/3 cup chopped parsley
2 hard-boiled eggs, (chopped)
Grated zest of a lemon
Black pepper
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Cuisine

American
Cajun

Steps

Start by making the turtle stock. Put the turtle meat into a large pot and cover with 8 cups of water. Add the bay leaves and about a tablespoon of salt. Bring to a boil and skim the scum that floats to the top. Drop the heat to a bare simmer and cook until the turtle meat wants to fall off the bone, about 2 to 3 hours.
Remove the meat from the pot and pull it off the bones. Chop as coarse or as fine as you want. Strain the turtle broth and put it into a pot set over low heat to keep warm.
In a Dutch oven or other soup pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat and stir in the flour. Cook this, stirring almost constantly, to make a roux the color of peanut butter, which will take about 10 to 15 minutes.
Add the green pepper, celery and onion and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the chopped turtle meat and stir to combine.
Stir in a cup of the turtle stock at a time until you the soup is the consistency of gravy. Add the tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne and paprika. Add more turtle broth until the soup thins a bit. It should be thicker than water, thinner than gravy -- like chicken and dumplings if you are familiar with that. Simmer gently for 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft.
Finish the soup with the sherry, parsley, lemon zest and hard-boiled eggs. Add them all, stir to combine and simmer for a minute or two. Add salt, black pepper and lemon juice to taste. Serve alone or with rice.

Nutitrion

Serving Size: 1 serving
Calories: 408 kcal
Carbohydrates: 24 g
Protein: 33 g
Fat: 19 g
Saturated Fat: 9 g
Trans Fat: 1 g
Cholesterol: 211 mg
Sodium: 308 mg
Sugar: 6 g

Reviews

Phil Bangert on 2026-02-17 (5 stars):
Delicious and true to form recipe. Have used this recipe for years. My source for frozen turtle meat is Louisiana Crawfish Company (www.lacrawfish.com). (My source for live crawfish too!) Overnight shipping cost can be as much as the turtle meat, but adding other perishable foods help to add value.
Dave Hedlund on 2025-08-10 (5 stars):
Another great recipe! I made this 2 days ago and followed the recipe almost exactly. It was awesome! The only change was not adding lemon juice. It was lemony enough for be with just the zest. I’ve cooked snapping turtles off and on for 50 years. Doing the slow simmer made the meat so tender. I had 2 1/2 lbs of turtle meat. I gave some to a friend who shared it with family members. They had never had snapping turtle before, and they said it was delicious! I agree.
Sndrew Wilson on 2024-08-27 (5 stars):
After harvesting my first ever turtle I used this recipe. It is soooooo good. I harvest many more turtles now and have never used a different recipe. Soft shell turtles are now more prized to me than catfish now haha.
Diana Taylor on 2024-06-17 (5 stars):
Had alot of company over Father's Day weekend here in Southwestern PA. Our great nephew put out some traps and bait to try to catch a big fish on our wetland but pulled out 2 snappers!! I was so excited and knew right away that you would have just the right recipe. (I love your venison chili and bolognese recipes). Anyway, made this creole soup last night and all twelve of us enjoyed it!! Added some pickled quail eggs too as someone else suggested. Delicious!!
David Peterman on 2024-05-17 (5 stars):
Caught a Snapper in my yard last week and gave this recipe a try as i had always wanted to try turtle at least once. Was absolutely blown away by how good it was. I even got a bit adventurous and thickened up the leftovers a bit and had them with some rice and a bit of cheese mixed in. No turtle big enough to make a pot of creole is safe on my farm now. Bonus is i had a couple cups of the stock leftover that i put into a small ice mold as cool treats for my dogs when it gets a bit warmer outside :)
John Rhoe on 2024-02-15 (4 stars):
You seem to be a MAN after my own mystique. I am called MOOSE by close friends. As a child I would take off on week long survival runs. I packed in a grand tent and sleeping bag plus all the camping tools that I owned. I kept my fire banked and ready to go again at an urge. I loved living the wild life. How’s about you?
Dan H on 2024-02-13 (5 stars):
Hi Hank. This recipe is a dead ringer for ANY turtle soup you'll find in the little restaurants peppered around Louisiana. I make this now every year for our Annual "wild game feed" here in Wisconsin. the only substitution I make is I use whole hard boiled quail eggs in the soup, as they don't break up and get lost in the stew like the chicken eggs do. We usually make a pot of this using 20 pounds of Mississippi River snapping turtle. It's always a huge hit at our game feed. I do spice it up a tad more with extra Cayenne pepper. Otherwise it's perfect.
Katie on 2023-10-14 (5 stars):
My son caught and butchered his first turtle and asked me to make this particular turtle soup recipe. We'd never had turtle meat before, it tastes like a cross between venison and clam We halved the cayenne but followed everything else to the T. It came out amazing, very delicious. We served it up with some sweet corn bread too! Will definitely make this again if we every have the chance to harvest more turtle meat!
Lynn Alessi on 2023-01-03 (5 stars):
I am from south Louisiana. In the past there was a restaurant in Baton Rouge that served excellent Turtle Soup, I ordered it every time I went there taking customers to lunch. I was talking with a friend several weeks ago about how great that soup was. I happened to find wild turtle meat in a local grocery by chance, bought a couple of pounds, and found this recipe! It is absolutely fabulous and it turned out better than I remember the other soup being. This recipe is authentic in taste, texture, appearance and detail. I WILL do it again and again. I doubt that the turtle itself is that necessary, I think this will work with pork and perhaps a little chicken. I minced the turtle meat and used chicken stock to cook it in. Otherwise I followed the recipe in exact detail.
Harold Renfro on 2022-03-30 (5 stars):
Enjoyed the recipe. Gave me more ideas on turning it into a turtle gumbo with shrimp ?. Going to add okra to it as well.