How to make a Turducken

Never in my life did I think I would know how to make a Turducken, or even eat one for that matter! When I first heard about it 10 years ago, it sounded gross to a much younger me. 3 years ago I started blogging and was always looking for newer harder cooking challenges, but it still wouldn’t have been something I wanted to take on. Even a month ago it was the last thing on my mind when I received an email in the Friendsgiving chain.

I would pitch in for turducken. I think we’ve talked about this since forever and have never done it. Do we build one ourselves, or can you buy them from somewhere?

I can build it was my only reply.

I never imagined how much I would actually enjoy every moment of this process. The pre-party email jokes, sourcing the local birds from farms in the area, de-boning a turkey but leaving the right bones so it still looked like a turkey, taking lots of pics, the excitement from friends when they realized that it wasn’t a joke anymore. But the best moment was cutting through the turducken in front of the crowd to reveal the meat-mass in all it’s glory, and then of course, devouring it!

That being said, this is a long post! If you want to learn something, read through it all, but if you get grossed out by icky pictures of butchering raw poultry, skip down half way to see some pictures of the final product and a bunch of my friends having the feast of a lifetime.

Preparing the Turkey

There are no magic words that I can write to teach you how to butcher a chicken or turkey. The only way to learn is to try it! I can however provide some tips. The first step is to cut out the backbone. On TV, they make cutting out the backbone look REALLY EASY. Perhaps cause they mostly do it with chickens and not turkeys? Anyway, this was not as easy as when I have done it with a chicken!

The thigh bones were next. They were actually easier than expected and were a big confidence booster! Just follow the bone with the knife slowly cutting away the flesh. When you make it down to the leg, find the joint, break the joint by bending the leg back, and you should be able to slide your knife right through it.

For the ribs, I just followed them with my knife. Make sure to keep as much breast meat intact as possible. When I got to the breastbone, I slid the knife under being VERY careful not to break through the turkey. This was the most important part, because if you split the breasts, you lose the awesome presentation.

This video is a great primer to watch before you attempt this process!

Brining the meats

Honestly brining was very popular a few years back but it isnt really anyone’s prefered method anymore. Brining can make the turkey very juicy, but the juiciness is coming mostly from water and isnt super flavorful. That being said – the best thing about brining turkey is it increases your margin of error for overcooking or drying out the meat. When you are cooking an epic turducken with lots of different meats, the margin of error is very important so the turkey breasts don’t get dry as the duck finishes cooking in the center.

The turkey is done getting surgery and is now in the brine! I also tossed in the chicken and duck. More info on the chicken and duck in a few paragraphs.

Making the cornbread stuffing

The next day. Time to make a stuffing. I broke up the cornbread and cooked the rest of the ingredients in a skillet with some butter for a few minutes. Sausage, onion, celery, carrot, sage, thyme, and some cranberries. Just toss it all together. Very simplified version, and a bit drier than I normally would do because this is going to be the glue that holds the turducken together. It’s also going to collect any fat and juices that the meats release.

The chicken and the duck

I am going to break here to talk for a moment about the duck and chicken. All of the turducken recipes I saw said to leave the skins on the chicken and duck. To me, that is just plain craziness! We all know crispy bird skin is delicious, but soggy fatty bird skin is no fun. Plus if I am going out of my way to get rid of the bones, I want to be able to have nice slices of turducken where everything is edible. Later on when I am doing the dishes I don’t want to see gross chunks of discarded duck skin on everyone’s plate.

The solution to this issue is to just buy boneless skinless pieces of chicken and duck for the inside of the turkey! This solves like 100 of the issues I had with the whole turducken concept. It also would have saved me a lot of time if I had realized it earlier. I ended up just butchering my chicken and duck into thinly sliced boneless skinless breasts, thighs, and legs so I could do it my way. You probably will still have to do a bit of butchering with the duck because it doesn’t often come boneless and skinless.

How to make the turducken

Make sure the stuffing is fully cooled and take the turkey out of the brine. Spread it on to your work surface, laid out flat so the legs are facing you and the skin is down.

Spread on the cornbread stuffing first

Then add the chicken in a thin layer.

Then repeat! More stuffing – then the duck layer.

Will it close? Yes, it was actually easy to close because I made sure not to over stuff it. Over stuffing is a problem I often have with almost any stuffed anything that I cook. This was a really important meal so I played it cautious.

My roommate Sal helped hold this together while I sewed it shut with some twine.

Flip it over so it’s rightside up and take a moment to be proud of the work you did.

Baking the Turducken

Pop it into a roasting pan, tie up the legs, and brush it with some oil and salt and pepper. Put it in the oven at 500, immediately turning it down to 350. This method gives the skin a jumpstart to drying out and crisping up! BONUS STEP- render the duck skin and use the fat to brush on the turkey skin!

Beauty! I expected this to take close to 6 hours, but it was done in 3 and a half to 4. I’m guessing the lack of bones caused my discrepancy. As it cooks, rotate the turducken and adjust the temps as needed if the skin looks like it isn’t browning or might burn! You can also brush it with a little oil if needed at any given time.

Cutting the Turducken

It rested about an hour (mainly cause we weren’t ready to eat yet). This was the moment of truth. I wish we got a picture of the 20 people standing over my shoulder right now!

At this point, I was laughing to myself because I could see the amazingness, but no one else could yet. I had worked so hard and it came out perfectly! I knew with this group of people, everyone would be enthusiastic and excited.

This came out just as I had hoped, if not better. I let it register about 5 degrees higher than I normally would have. I was a little nervous with all the stuffing and different meats! Because of this, it ended up being ever so slightly drier than I would have liked. But the flavor was amazing with every bite and there was tons of turducken gravy to slop over everything.

Turducken Gravy?

I didn’t include a recipe for this, but I made a concentrated stock with the bones I removed from the turkey and duck and used this method to create a gravy. I also poured the drippings from the roasted turkey into the gravy in the end. You shouldn’t rely on drippings alone to make a gravy! Do it ahead with the bones and then add the drippings to boost the flavor! This recipe thankfully gives you bones to work with.

The stuffing soaked up a lot of the juices that would have dripped out of the bird, so the moisture was still there.

Unless you have one with some weird meat glue in it, it’s going to fall apart a bit as you cut it, but that is OK.

That’s a lot of people!

I stole a drumstick since I cooked the thing. Even though there was no duck or chicken in this piece, it still had the turducken essence.

Go forth and make a turducken!

I included a recipe below, but keep in mind this isnt a project for beginners! For those of you that came here for tips and tricks, I hope that my pictures and words could be a help in your quest for turducken enlightenment. I made this in my early days of cooking so I think you could tackle it if you are prepared for what is in store!

I just want to say thanks to everyone who came to the party, and especially who brought sides! It was a lot of fun and I am forever grateful you pushed me to creating this epic turducken. A night I will never forget!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! See ya next week!

If you are looking for fun Thanksgiving flavored meals, some of which you can make with leftovers, check out my Thanksgiving burrito, eggs benedict, mac and cheese, or these stuffing flavored tater tots!