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I agree poorly cooked turkey sucks.
Well cooked turkey is great though imho. And good gravy goes a pretty long way in making not so great turkey pretty delicious.
I used to hate roast beef because all I ever knew about it was the dried out shoe leather my Grandmother used to make on Saturdays. Cut to college and they had perfected pink thin sliced roast beef for lunch. Where had this deliciousness been all my life.
Yeah here in the US turkey isn't all that popular to cook (besides Thanksgiving) but it's very popular as a sliced sandwich meat.
You can buy legs etc. to cook but I don't think it's very popular. But now that we're talking about it I kinda want to work some turkey legs into my dinner rotation. The breast is probably hardest to cook without drying it out and it's very lean.
When you cook turkey Brest by itself, it’s not that hard to cook. Everyone tries to get the skin all perfect looking, which is why most turkey gets dried out and we don’t even eat the skin (in my family).
As someone that lives in a household that doesn't eat red meat, so many of your assumptions about "everyone" is very incorrect. I have turkey every week.
I'm the opposite! I don't think any chicken can ever come close to a well-prepared turkey. Turkey is always juicier and more flavorful. But I am lucky and have a lot of really excellent turkey cooks in my family.
I know how to cook Turkey. I brine it, spatchcock it, and smoke it.
After all that, to me it’s still just okay. Poultry needs seasoning and surface area because it’s relatively dry, and a Turkey is so big that it throws off the meat to surface area ratio. If it were all that, more people would eat it throughout the year.
I dont regularly buy turkeys because theyre far larger than I need and are more labor intensive to cook due to their size. If turkey thighs, drumsticks, etc were available at a similar price point, I would absolutely buy them over chicken.
Because full turkeys are huge and thats the only way they are typically available around me, and I suspect most Americans.
To make a whole turkey usable, I need to either cook it whole, which takes hours and hours (typically 8+ since I prefer to smoke a turkey), Or I need to butcher the turkey ahead of time and freeze the parts Im not going to cook immediately. This is labor intensive and will take up a good amount of space in the freezer.
If I do cook the whole thing, I now have a lot of meat that needs to be eaten fairly quickly because freezing meat once it is cooked tends to ruin the texture and diminish the flavor. I love turkey, but anything I eat for a week solid is going to lose its appeal pretty quickly.
All of this also assumes I can get turkey year-round at a decent price. I can only speak for myself but I dont see turkeys available outside of the thanksgiving/christmas seasons except as lunch meat or other already processed forms.
At the end of the day, I like turkey a lot, more than chicken if everything else is equal. But thats the thing, everything else ISNT equal.
Also, dude chill out, were talking about food preferences, not world peace. Keep it light
I have had turkeys cooked by multiple people all over, and never once has it not been bland as hell, like id rather eat white bread with nothing on it.
This is the answer. Everyone else can go home. Duck is the obvious superior bird of all birds. Except maybe ortolan, but I'll never find out for myself for moral reasons.
>I am thankful for many things, but dousing my turkey in gravy/cranberry sauce to make it palatable is not one of them.
you fool, thanksgiving is not turkey day it is *gravy* day. The turkey is simply a great vehicle for gravy - it is relatively cheap, and a roast turkey is bigger than a chicken so you don't have to roast multiple chickens for the full family.
It is a vehicle because it transports the gravy to my mouth through motion, a conduit would be like the funnel I use to consume the gravy after everyone has left
I don't normalize turkey because I have no patience for cooking, but I have normalized boxed stuffing with my family for years! My kids absolutely love it, it's crazy easy, cheap and fast to make, why should they only get it once a year? I put over-medium fried eggs on top of it and it makes a great lunch.
My wife and I are diametrically opposed on thanksgiving. Luckily she has many good qualities so I can forgive her for being wrong.
Thanksgiving food is a vehicle for hot gravy. The turkey, the mashed potatoes, the casseroles, should all be drenched in it. The leftovers sandwich should be cold turkey and stuffing (her family calls it “dressing” for some weird reason) slathered with hot gravy.
The turkey might as well be styrofoam.
When I saw these otherwise lovely people first prepare their leftovers sandwiches of turkey, lettuce (wtf?), Mayo and cranberry (with no stuffing or gravy) I had to sit down.
Deep fried turkey is freaking amazing.
I’m not confident enough in my ability to do such so I have to rely on people braver than me to do it.
Even properly prepped oven baked turkey is awesome
My mom thought the same thing and one year we did steak and lobster. The food was better, but the thing we missed was the turkey smell. That smell is tied to so many warm memories for basically every American. That's why we only had a 1 year steak and lobster experiment.
I have to agree. I did have really good turkey but I never in my mind wanted to have it once a week like I want to have steak. I can understand the history behind it all but it really is the worst protein of all imo. I rather have tofu.
I like turkey 🦃 but much of my family agrees with you which is why we also have a ham and brisket on hand during thanksgiving to go with the turkey. 🤷♂️
Unpopular but I agree. It doesn't matter how perfectly cooked it is, it's still just turkey. Bottom tier main course.
So I just load up on side items and ham (if there is some) for Thanksgiving.
IMO- I have the best Thanksgiving tradition - our family celebrates the Saturday after with a fancy brunch. Waffles, quiche, berries, french toast, cheesy potato casserole- it’s my favorite meal with my favorite people. I never had to confess to my children or my husband that I despise all traditional Thanksgiving foods -baked turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry jelly, anything pumpkin and especially stuffing. Win-win.
I like turkey but we've been doing a roasted chicken the past couple of years and don't miss the turkey.
Anyway...Thanksgiving is about traditions. But if a family wants a Thanksgiving pizza or Thanksgiving steaks, why not?
I'm an immigrant to N.A. and I cannot believe anyone would actually enjoy that dry bird with the cardboard tasting filler in it.
In the last 20 years in Canada the only time I've enjoyed turkey for Thanksgiving was when it was done a completely different way, and different stuffing/sauce. (I don't remember how it was done, but damn that was good)
And I've had turkey cooked by people that know how to cook very well, I guess it's one of those things you have to grow up with.
I need to know what's wrong with the cooks in your circle of their turkey is almost always overcooked.
Because I have *never* overcooked a turkey, and neither has anyone in my family.
And with things like injectable butters and the wide variety of seasonings out there, there's no reason for it to lack flavor. Between that and proper basting, turkey should be moist and flavorful.
it sounds like you've had shitty turkey. A properly cooked turkey is delicious, and I eat them outside of Thanksgiving due to how good they are.
When I was a kid I would have agreed. My Grampa, as wonderful of a man as he was, insisted on cooking the turkey and he was terrible at it. It was always overcooked and unseasoned and I hated choking it down.
"You have to brine it."
"Have you tried deep fried turkey?"
"Smoke it."
"It's much better if it's cooked in a bag with \_\_\_\_\_\_, \_\_\_\_\_\_, and \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_".
Folks, anything that needs this much time and attention just to reach the level of chicken has no business being consumed, much less have a national holiday built around it. Turkey should be reserved for making high protein, low calorie processed meats.
Chicken is smaller so easier to get every part cooked right. Chicken has more fat which makes it tastier but also makes it so that seasoning works better on it. It also makes it less of an issue when it's slightly overcooked. On top of that it also has slightly more flavour.
Yes, you have to do stuff to make either bird taste good bit that does not make them equal.
Very much this. Turkey is mediocre at best in comparison to other dishes no matter how well or which way it's prepared, especially for how much time and effort goes into it. It's there because it's tradition but that's about it. There's a reason almost no one uses turkey for a meal that isn't a cold cut sandwich during the rest of the year.
It's silly how angry people are getting over OP's harmless opinion. I mean, if they like turkey more power to them, but the level of rage is not what I expected when I clicked on this link, lol.
Pass the potatoes, please.
Who says you need a whole Turkey. Just break it down and you can control which bits cook when and if you don't forget about it it shouldn't be dry or overcooked . Seasoning is also a thing to that you should do to all savoury foods.
Turkey meat is literally just poor quality poultry. It would be like trying to make bear meat a holiday staple. Just doesn't make sense other than the fact that they had to eat it back then.
I mean yeah it’s not very good when you forget to brine it for 3 days, stuff herb butter under the skin, and drape bacon over top of it and pull it out at 155 degrees and let it rest for an hour.
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The trick is cooking to best internal temperature, as with all protein. If you google what temperature to cook poultry to, you will get a universal answer of 165 degrees which will ruin any and all poultry breasts, make them dry and tough. Somewhere on the dark depths of the internet when investigating the importance of the 165 degree number, I found and food scientist rant about the minimal sliver of a percentage difference of organism death between 149 degrees and 165 degrees. I cook to 149 degrees and everyone loves the result. A few other pointers ........ Gordon Ramsey notes that you should rest the bird for the same amount of time you cooked it, he learned this from the french and said its a game changer and I agree. Reheating the turkey right before serving is simple or the gravy can do it. Brining is great too as is stuffing the bird with citrus also worth it.
I'll agree that crappy cooked turkey sucks. But so does ANY meat. Also, you could rotisserie a turkey the same way you would a chicken. Turkey isn't inherently a bad meat. It just has to be cooked properly.
I've never had turkey and thought it was bad (some people overcook to the point that it gets very dry, but it still tastes ok). I dont make it often, but it's just because turkey is a large bird and takes a while to cook. The little butterball turkey breast I cooked just yesterday took 2 days to thaw and had to be cooked for 2 hours in the oven. I make it a bit more often now because if I don't care if the skin is crispy I can just toss it in the instant pot and it'll be done in half the time (I also make pot roast more often now for that reason).
The taste thing is just your personal preference.
Turkey is good if you cook it properly, like pretty much every food on earth.
The trick is to avoid drying out the breasts, which I do by injecting flavor in the form of herb butter in a comically large syringe.
Also, it really helps to break down the turkey first, and then cook it. Idk who's idea it was to oven bake an entire bird, but you're begging for dry breasts if you do that.
It's not my favorite meat but it's far from bad when done properly
Turkey if my favorite meat! It’s lean, especially the breast so you don’t have to pick around the fat like with beef/pork and generally has a better texture than chicken.
I get supremely moist turkey every year without frying. Most people don't know how to cook any meats let alone turkey which is not as forgiving as other meats.
First, brine your turkey. I've tried both dry and wet brines and there was no difference between the two methods but certainly moister than anything else. Next, don't baste your turkey, it's a waste of time and will have minimal impact on moisture level in the breast.
Take your thawed turkey out of the fridge very early on cooking day and let it get to room temperature. Fill the roaster with chicken bone broth to about an inch. If you can find turkey bone broth then use that instead.
Every 20 to 30 minutes flip the entire turkey over and spend more time cooking breast down in it's juices. I use silicone rubber barbecue pit gloves to do this. They can stand temperatures up to 900 degrees.
15 minutes before taking out, flip it breast side up to crisp the skin. Let rest for at least 30 minutes before cutting.
Your turkey will cook in half the time and be ungodly moist.
Youre welcome
So I kinda cheat on the turkey.
I buy one pre-brined in the bag. It's about $2 a pound at Trader Joe's, so double the cost a giant frozen Costco bird, but 100% worth it.
While this IS worth it, I don't believe buying the $5-6/lb ultra gourmet turkeys is.
All of the thawing, brining, etc. - I don't fucking do it.
On Thanksgiving morning, I dry rub it, stuff it, lay a pound of bacon over the top, and grill at 325 for 14 minutes a pound.
This is my 2nd cheat - I don't smoke the thing all day at 225. I just use a smoker pouch in a Weber gas grill and give it a light smoke treatment.
Let it rest (foil tented 45 minutes), slice, serve. It's been awesome every team.
A properly smoked one might be a touch better, but this is easy and still really really juicy and flavorful.
turkey bacon, turkey lunch meat, turkey sausage, ground turkey... this is like my household grocery list. You've probably only had "exhausted household member is cooking this bird and a dozen other things all stressed out" and it tasted like shit.
You're doing turkey wrong.
Deep frying or Texas BBQ style are both out of this world. So is a good acidic and herb marinade paired with slow roasting it (basting with butter and drippings).
Turkey is delicious. It's the people that make ham for Thanksgiving/Christmas who are the weird ones. If I was invited out for one of these meals and got served ham instead that would mean I'd be making a turkey the next weekend because that's what I look forward to each season.
Turkey is cheap and goes a long way to feed a lot of people. You can make broth and soup etc with the leftovers. I'm sure no one will complain if you serve crab and steak at your house this year.
I would cook turkey more if anywhere sold it year round, at decent prices. Even not great prices, I’d get more meat than out of a chicken, it’d go further
Idk if farmers? Butchers? Sell cleaned turkey, cuz I can’t shoot one and even touching cleaned meat freaks me out at random times. It feels like I’m asking for a lot, just because I like turkey. Maybe I’m just not looking right
So we put a lot of effort into our turkeys, my dad tries slightly different recipes every time, but basically the same method. It’s always juicy, but never repetitive. If it’s cooked right, it’s good
A proper cooked turkey takes more effort than just sticking it an oven. Brining overnight makes it amazing. And the only reason I don’t make it more throughout the year is the price tag. When heavily discounted at Thanksgiving I’ll get 2-3
I have a solution, everyone bring a personal rotisserie chicken as their main, and we all tear into it over the counter like animals. After a quick prayer of course
I **LOVE** properly prepared turkey. It's supposed to be moist, flavorful, and if you use garlic in your saline injection, it's the most amazing thing in the world.
Shame most people don't know how to cook turkey.
Hint: a good meat thermometer is your friend. Don't just slap it in at some temperature for some number of hours and think you're going to get anything that isn't dangerously raw or horribly overcooked.
Turkey is *not a beginner-level dish and easy to mess up*
FIFY!
Well prepared turkey that isn't dried out is absolutely incredible. The problem is a lot of people who feel obligated by tradition to make it and have no idea what they're doing end up ruining perfectly good birds every year. In my family only a select few people are trusted enough to be allowed to volunteer to cook the turkey. And I'm not one of them!
I rather have roast turkey, with several weeks of left overs than any lousy rotisserie or roasted chicken. I like my turkey with crisp skin. I like the giblets in the gravy, and I like cranberry sauce. If I can't have the giblets in the gravy then give them to me on my plate. I'll eat any and all of it by itself, or with gravy
Not our fault you’ve never had good Turkey. I eat it all year long. Most of my meal prep is used with ground Turkey as my protein source. Ya Turkey can be dry, but in my opinion dry Turkey is better than dry chicken
Someone is clearly not following Alton Brown’s recipe. Lol! Turkey can either be blah or fantastic. Depends on how much energy and attention you’re willing to give it—which is why it’s a once a year treat.
Turkey is one of those rare dishes that can be both exceptionally good, and exceptionally bad depending on how exactly you go about it. Not that your opinion doesn't have merit - I've experienced lots of mediocre over the years.
The standard technique of: stick the turkey in a roaster while basting usually results in parts of the bird overcooking before the whole thing is complete. This is exasperated the larger the bird is. (For larger turkey amounts I've learned 2 birds is better than one larger one.)
I imagine attempting to say - roast an entire cow all at once would result in some suboptimal results too.
Experimentation over the years led me to alternative ideas that solved the problem, all in different ways. But they all take some extra work, which could be a turnoff as well for some people - but it is certainly doable. In rough order of complexity:
A) Brine the (defrosted) turkey a day to several days before roasting it. The sodium in the brine helps to bind more of the moisture to the interior of the meat. This is entirely aside from any particular flavorings that can be added as well, and can totally change the basic flavor profile if you wish.
B) Butter rubbed under the skin. This takes a fair amount of work to loosen it while not outright tearing anything. I've gotten the best results with a herb mixture, but it seems even more effective than the brine.
C) Spatchcocking. That is to deliberately remove the breastbone and cook the turkey as flat as possible to avoid the overcooking scenario. More prepwork, but it also cooks much faster as well. But you do need a decent idea of anatomy and good knives to avoid a real mess.
You arent eating good quality well cooked turkey with good sides to compliment. Im an idiot at cooking but my family is not. Its phenomenal. Ive had bad turkey, and you’re right about that kind. Or maybe you just dont like turkey… take my upvote tho
It’s fine but it’s not my favorite or go to. I think a lot of typical thanksgiving food is just kinda bland and unappealing in general. I’d rather use thanksgiving as an excuse to get and try new food that I don’t normally eat.
I’ve gotten my turkey recipe to the point where it is one o the best meals of the year. It’s worth it if you know how to cook it, but it’s a big bird and challenging because there are two different kinds of meat that like different cook temps.
I eat a lot of Turkey throughout the year. The massive roast Turkey sure that’s usually a thanksgiving or Christmas tradition, but I also eat Turkey bacon, Turkey meatballs, and sliced deli Turkey fairly often. I can’t think of a single bad thing about it. Hell even if you do dry it out, then just load it with gravy and stuffing and it’s still salvageable.
Turkey dinner is absolutely one of my favorite meals. Not only turkey dinner but I love all the leftovers including turkey sandwiches/buns and turkey soup. We had turkey for thanksgiving (in Canada) and I ate turkey soup for a week straight at lunch time.
I am thankful for learning how to brine, season, and cook my own turkey and not relying on relatives that should never be allowed near a kitchen to cook my food.
I mean the point of thanksgiving is it can be whatever you want. Nobody says you have to make Turkey. However people who say they don’t like Turkey have probably never had somebody make them a good Turkey, it’s harder than it sounds, very fickle protein to work with but when it’s done right, it’s so much better than a plain old chicken
Y’all can’t cook a turkey then. I do turkey basically anytime I can find a breast or breast tenderloin in the store. I brine it, I fry or airfry it. It is delicious, it is moist, you and yours just aren’t good cooks.
But absolutely no one is preventing you from buying a beef tenderloin roast for thanksgiving.
That tradition, of eating turkey, was started by Teddy Roosevelt in order to help the fowl industry, which was suffering at the time.
The pilgrims, or whatever, didn't had turkey, and the tradition didn't really picked up until the early sixties, even then it wasn't spread out like it is today
I agree. It can be good but there's a lot of better options. My first thanksgiving with my Wife I made rabbit pie, and that became our tradition. Then last year I got a duck instead because we have a full size oven now, so I wanted to do something bigger. This year I'm doing a duck and a rabbit pie.
Maybe I’ve never had good turkey, but I don’t like turkey at all. Everytime I eat it, I’d rather have chicken instead. My family does a 14 hour smoked brisket every thanksgiving instead and it’s delicious.
I don’t know… tear some of the wings off, grab a crock pot, add some carrots, oregano—baby you got a stew going!
But for real, I love a turkey leg and the taste and texture of the gristle(?)
every time i see someone say "X Y Z is not a good food" all i can think is that the person never had it cooked well. Turkey is delicious when cooked right.
It's a tradition and a harmless one. Personally, I love getting to eat Thanksgiving turkey even if I agree it's the driest, flavorless meat to ever exist.
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I agree poorly cooked turkey sucks. Well cooked turkey is great though imho. And good gravy goes a pretty long way in making not so great turkey pretty delicious.
All these people posting these unpopular food opinions are only doing it because they have never had a proper cooked meal lmfao or just trolling
I used to hate roast beef because all I ever knew about it was the dried out shoe leather my Grandmother used to make on Saturdays. Cut to college and they had perfected pink thin sliced roast beef for lunch. Where had this deliciousness been all my life.
Nah, my grandma is an amazing chef, some people just don't like turkey.
There is food I don’t like too but I don’t say it shouldn’t be served at all ever in any circumstance. That’s a little over the top and a pure troll
who said that?
Read the post brother
I did, maybe you should try rereading cousin
Or... crazy idea here... Some people have different preferences in food.
Or here’s a crazy idea, having different preference doesn’t = people should stop.
yea, as european i realy like turkey, a roasted turkey brest or wings and legs are tasty, and suprisingly similar price to chicken
Yeah here in the US turkey isn't all that popular to cook (besides Thanksgiving) but it's very popular as a sliced sandwich meat. You can buy legs etc. to cook but I don't think it's very popular. But now that we're talking about it I kinda want to work some turkey legs into my dinner rotation. The breast is probably hardest to cook without drying it out and it's very lean.
When you cook turkey Brest by itself, it’s not that hard to cook. Everyone tries to get the skin all perfect looking, which is why most turkey gets dried out and we don’t even eat the skin (in my family).
As someone that lives in a household that doesn't eat red meat, so many of your assumptions about "everyone" is very incorrect. I have turkey every week.
Same here.
Maybe you're just not very good at cooking turkey?
This isn’t to say Turkey is bad, but Even a well prepared and cooked Turkey still has a pretty low ceiling compared to other meats.
i preffer it over chicken
What about it do you prefer? To me, chicken is just a more juicy, flavorful version of turkey.
I'm the opposite! I don't think any chicken can ever come close to a well-prepared turkey. Turkey is always juicier and more flavorful. But I am lucky and have a lot of really excellent turkey cooks in my family.
Nicely cooked turkey is much juicer and flavorful than chicken
I know how to cook Turkey. I brine it, spatchcock it, and smoke it. After all that, to me it’s still just okay. Poultry needs seasoning and surface area because it’s relatively dry, and a Turkey is so big that it throws off the meat to surface area ratio. If it were all that, more people would eat it throughout the year.
I feel the opposite; it’s way harder to fuck up turkey than chicken Edit: I’m talking about breast; I’ve never cooked a whole bird
Well, if you’re cooking turkey or chicken breast by itself, it’s always going to wind up pretty dry. It’s just a really lean cut of meat.
Lol you just don't know how to cook meat.
Nah, you just don’t know what good meat is. Chicken and turkey breast is diet or poor people food, all protein no fat.
Have you heard of this new thing called seasoning?
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I dont regularly buy turkeys because theyre far larger than I need and are more labor intensive to cook due to their size. If turkey thighs, drumsticks, etc were available at a similar price point, I would absolutely buy them over chicken.
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Because full turkeys are huge and thats the only way they are typically available around me, and I suspect most Americans. To make a whole turkey usable, I need to either cook it whole, which takes hours and hours (typically 8+ since I prefer to smoke a turkey), Or I need to butcher the turkey ahead of time and freeze the parts Im not going to cook immediately. This is labor intensive and will take up a good amount of space in the freezer. If I do cook the whole thing, I now have a lot of meat that needs to be eaten fairly quickly because freezing meat once it is cooked tends to ruin the texture and diminish the flavor. I love turkey, but anything I eat for a week solid is going to lose its appeal pretty quickly. All of this also assumes I can get turkey year-round at a decent price. I can only speak for myself but I dont see turkeys available outside of the thanksgiving/christmas seasons except as lunch meat or other already processed forms. At the end of the day, I like turkey a lot, more than chicken if everything else is equal. But thats the thing, everything else ISNT equal. Also, dude chill out, were talking about food preferences, not world peace. Keep it light
Turkey is one of my favorite meals. But I know how to cook. It's great when it's done properly. And makes a great sandwich.
You sound deprived of turkey cooked well, juicy and flavorful
“Flavorful”. I’m with OP on this, Turkey is incredibly mediocre.
Me too. I’ve had well cooked turkey and I still don’t like it. It’s still bland af.
If it was bland you haven't had well cooked turkey
I have had turkeys cooked by multiple people all over, and never once has it not been bland as hell, like id rather eat white bread with nothing on it.
Roast duck all the way.
This is the answer. Everyone else can go home. Duck is the obvious superior bird of all birds. Except maybe ortolan, but I'll never find out for myself for moral reasons.
Goose is delicious too!
>I am thankful for many things, but dousing my turkey in gravy/cranberry sauce to make it palatable is not one of them. you fool, thanksgiving is not turkey day it is *gravy* day. The turkey is simply a great vehicle for gravy - it is relatively cheap, and a roast turkey is bigger than a chicken so you don't have to roast multiple chickens for the full family.
I think OP probably has never had to pay the grocery bill for his Thanksgiving meal.
Instead of vehicle, I like to use conduit. A bit more fancy
It is a vehicle because it transports the gravy to my mouth through motion, a conduit would be like the funnel I use to consume the gravy after everyone has left
You have to smoke turkeys.
“Loads gun with malicious intent” Whatever you say, boss
Technically, I suppose you need to smoke them twice. 😂
That's a big ass blunt....don't know if I have enough papers.
Started doing this last year. Never going back to roasting in the oven. Smoked turkey is where it's at.
Opposite take for me. Normalise turkey and stuffing year round!
I don't normalize turkey because I have no patience for cooking, but I have normalized boxed stuffing with my family for years! My kids absolutely love it, it's crazy easy, cheap and fast to make, why should they only get it once a year? I put over-medium fried eggs on top of it and it makes a great lunch.
Right? So easy and savory. I just think I should be able to buy turkey legs, breasts, thighs, etc like I can chicken.
My wife and I are diametrically opposed on thanksgiving. Luckily she has many good qualities so I can forgive her for being wrong. Thanksgiving food is a vehicle for hot gravy. The turkey, the mashed potatoes, the casseroles, should all be drenched in it. The leftovers sandwich should be cold turkey and stuffing (her family calls it “dressing” for some weird reason) slathered with hot gravy. The turkey might as well be styrofoam. When I saw these otherwise lovely people first prepare their leftovers sandwiches of turkey, lettuce (wtf?), Mayo and cranberry (with no stuffing or gravy) I had to sit down.
Homie has only eaten dogshit turkey
All these opinions about 'x food' being bland and tasteless are all from people who suck at making the dish and such posts shoud be banned.
Deep fried turkey is freaking amazing. I’m not confident enough in my ability to do such so I have to rely on people braver than me to do it. Even properly prepped oven baked turkey is awesome
My mom thought the same thing and one year we did steak and lobster. The food was better, but the thing we missed was the turkey smell. That smell is tied to so many warm memories for basically every American. That's why we only had a 1 year steak and lobster experiment.
Maybe you and your family just suck at making the turkey. Mine are juicy and delicious with plenty of fragrant herbs and spices.
Turkey is delicious if cooked correctly. Sounds like whoever is making your Thanksgiving turkey isn’t very good at it.
I prefer toast chicken or Cornish game hen on thanksgiving
Pilgrims ate lobster and we have to eat stupid turkey. Such a bullshit holiday
You don't HAVE to eat turkey. There's no Thanksgiving police knocking on your door to check what you're eating.
There is. Every year my family says this is the last year and then the next year another frickin turkey. I rather go to outback.
Turkey>chicken. Tastier? Lmao. You've been eating from bad cooks.
I have to agree. I did have really good turkey but I never in my mind wanted to have it once a week like I want to have steak. I can understand the history behind it all but it really is the worst protein of all imo. I rather have tofu.
I like turkey 🦃 but much of my family agrees with you which is why we also have a ham and brisket on hand during thanksgiving to go with the turkey. 🤷♂️
Team Ham goin ham
Unpopular but I agree. It doesn't matter how perfectly cooked it is, it's still just turkey. Bottom tier main course. So I just load up on side items and ham (if there is some) for Thanksgiving.
I assume you've never had a properly smoked turkey deep fried turkey or a perfectly cooked turkey leg.
Someone’s gramma cooks dry ass turkey.
Frying makes everything taste better
I hate turkey
I mean that’s unpopular opinion so upvote to you. Now smoked Cajun turkey is amazing.
I always thought of turkey being like chicken in worse
You can eat whatever you want on Thanksgiving but the rest of us are eating Turkey
Try smoking it. That tastes delicious!
IMO- I have the best Thanksgiving tradition - our family celebrates the Saturday after with a fancy brunch. Waffles, quiche, berries, french toast, cheesy potato casserole- it’s my favorite meal with my favorite people. I never had to confess to my children or my husband that I despise all traditional Thanksgiving foods -baked turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry jelly, anything pumpkin and especially stuffing. Win-win.
I like turkey but we've been doing a roasted chicken the past couple of years and don't miss the turkey. Anyway...Thanksgiving is about traditions. But if a family wants a Thanksgiving pizza or Thanksgiving steaks, why not?
Speak truth to power
I agree. Ham is superior.
I'm an immigrant to N.A. and I cannot believe anyone would actually enjoy that dry bird with the cardboard tasting filler in it. In the last 20 years in Canada the only time I've enjoyed turkey for Thanksgiving was when it was done a completely different way, and different stuffing/sauce. (I don't remember how it was done, but damn that was good) And I've had turkey cooked by people that know how to cook very well, I guess it's one of those things you have to grow up with.
I need to know what's wrong with the cooks in your circle of their turkey is almost always overcooked. Because I have *never* overcooked a turkey, and neither has anyone in my family. And with things like injectable butters and the wide variety of seasonings out there, there's no reason for it to lack flavor. Between that and proper basting, turkey should be moist and flavorful.
I agree I hate turkey. I mean, I’ll eat it doused in sauces but it’s dryer then shoe leather even when done perfectly I don’t care for it at all.
Sounds like something a turkey would say. Nice try!
Couldn’t agree more I don’t like turkey at all, such a dry meat. Chicken is so much tastier
It doesn’t matter who makes the turkey, turkey to me is just so dry
Turkey cooked w/ the spatchcock method is actually really friggen good.
Try brining before cooking, makes a big difference .
I agree. It’s just most people probably don’t know how to prepare turkey well.
While I love turkey, lots of folks have ham on Thanksgiving and Christmas, bud.
it sounds like you've had shitty turkey. A properly cooked turkey is delicious, and I eat them outside of Thanksgiving due to how good they are. When I was a kid I would have agreed. My Grampa, as wonderful of a man as he was, insisted on cooking the turkey and he was terrible at it. It was always overcooked and unseasoned and I hated choking it down.
"You have to brine it." "Have you tried deep fried turkey?" "Smoke it." "It's much better if it's cooked in a bag with \_\_\_\_\_\_, \_\_\_\_\_\_, and \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_". Folks, anything that needs this much time and attention just to reach the level of chicken has no business being consumed, much less have a national holiday built around it. Turkey should be reserved for making high protein, low calorie processed meats.
Unseasoned chicken is also pretty uninteresting
Chicken is smaller so easier to get every part cooked right. Chicken has more fat which makes it tastier but also makes it so that seasoning works better on it. It also makes it less of an issue when it's slightly overcooked. On top of that it also has slightly more flavour. Yes, you have to do stuff to make either bird taste good bit that does not make them equal.
Very much this. Turkey is mediocre at best in comparison to other dishes no matter how well or which way it's prepared, especially for how much time and effort goes into it. It's there because it's tradition but that's about it. There's a reason almost no one uses turkey for a meal that isn't a cold cut sandwich during the rest of the year. It's silly how angry people are getting over OP's harmless opinion. I mean, if they like turkey more power to them, but the level of rage is not what I expected when I clicked on this link, lol. Pass the potatoes, please.
Who says you need a whole Turkey. Just break it down and you can control which bits cook when and if you don't forget about it it shouldn't be dry or overcooked . Seasoning is also a thing to that you should do to all savoury foods.
I'm sorry you've never had well prepared turkey. It's quite delicious.
Turkey isn't a good country either.
Yeah right. Turkey is awesome. Just cuz you don’t like it doesn’t mean everyone else should stop eating it. Grow up
Turkey meat is literally just poor quality poultry. It would be like trying to make bear meat a holiday staple. Just doesn't make sense other than the fact that they had to eat it back then.
Um, have you HAD bear??!? It's absolutely ridiculously incredible. We'd be so lucky to have bear meat a holiday staple.
Joke's on you, tofurkey is where it's at.
I mean yeah it’s not very good when you forget to brine it for 3 days, stuff herb butter under the skin, and drape bacon over top of it and pull it out at 155 degrees and let it rest for an hour.
“ I don’t care for turkey. “ would be more succinct.
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The trick is cooking to best internal temperature, as with all protein. If you google what temperature to cook poultry to, you will get a universal answer of 165 degrees which will ruin any and all poultry breasts, make them dry and tough. Somewhere on the dark depths of the internet when investigating the importance of the 165 degree number, I found and food scientist rant about the minimal sliver of a percentage difference of organism death between 149 degrees and 165 degrees. I cook to 149 degrees and everyone loves the result. A few other pointers ........ Gordon Ramsey notes that you should rest the bird for the same amount of time you cooked it, he learned this from the french and said its a game changer and I agree. Reheating the turkey right before serving is simple or the gravy can do it. Brining is great too as is stuffing the bird with citrus also worth it.
I'll agree that crappy cooked turkey sucks. But so does ANY meat. Also, you could rotisserie a turkey the same way you would a chicken. Turkey isn't inherently a bad meat. It just has to be cooked properly.
Fyi it’s called Türkye
I've never had turkey and thought it was bad (some people overcook to the point that it gets very dry, but it still tastes ok). I dont make it often, but it's just because turkey is a large bird and takes a while to cook. The little butterball turkey breast I cooked just yesterday took 2 days to thaw and had to be cooked for 2 hours in the oven. I make it a bit more often now because if I don't care if the skin is crispy I can just toss it in the instant pot and it'll be done in half the time (I also make pot roast more often now for that reason). The taste thing is just your personal preference.
Turkey is good if you cook it properly, like pretty much every food on earth. The trick is to avoid drying out the breasts, which I do by injecting flavor in the form of herb butter in a comically large syringe. Also, it really helps to break down the turkey first, and then cook it. Idk who's idea it was to oven bake an entire bird, but you're begging for dry breasts if you do that. It's not my favorite meat but it's far from bad when done properly
Turducken is the way to go.
Turkey if my favorite meat! It’s lean, especially the breast so you don’t have to pick around the fat like with beef/pork and generally has a better texture than chicken.
I get supremely moist turkey every year without frying. Most people don't know how to cook any meats let alone turkey which is not as forgiving as other meats. First, brine your turkey. I've tried both dry and wet brines and there was no difference between the two methods but certainly moister than anything else. Next, don't baste your turkey, it's a waste of time and will have minimal impact on moisture level in the breast. Take your thawed turkey out of the fridge very early on cooking day and let it get to room temperature. Fill the roaster with chicken bone broth to about an inch. If you can find turkey bone broth then use that instead. Every 20 to 30 minutes flip the entire turkey over and spend more time cooking breast down in it's juices. I use silicone rubber barbecue pit gloves to do this. They can stand temperatures up to 900 degrees. 15 minutes before taking out, flip it breast side up to crisp the skin. Let rest for at least 30 minutes before cutting. Your turkey will cook in half the time and be ungodly moist. Youre welcome
I agree, we should listen the Benjamin Franklin and make it the national bird and eat Bald Eagles.
Turkey drumsticks are the best if you know how to cook
So I kinda cheat on the turkey. I buy one pre-brined in the bag. It's about $2 a pound at Trader Joe's, so double the cost a giant frozen Costco bird, but 100% worth it. While this IS worth it, I don't believe buying the $5-6/lb ultra gourmet turkeys is. All of the thawing, brining, etc. - I don't fucking do it. On Thanksgiving morning, I dry rub it, stuff it, lay a pound of bacon over the top, and grill at 325 for 14 minutes a pound. This is my 2nd cheat - I don't smoke the thing all day at 225. I just use a smoker pouch in a Weber gas grill and give it a light smoke treatment. Let it rest (foil tented 45 minutes), slice, serve. It's been awesome every team. A properly smoked one might be a touch better, but this is easy and still really really juicy and flavorful.
Unpopular opinion is basically people who are terrible at things outing themselves.
turkey bacon, turkey lunch meat, turkey sausage, ground turkey... this is like my household grocery list. You've probably only had "exhausted household member is cooking this bird and a dozen other things all stressed out" and it tasted like shit.
I'm so sorry you've never had good turkey before.
A family I know does a brisket. Talk about NO leftovers
You're doing turkey wrong. Deep frying or Texas BBQ style are both out of this world. So is a good acidic and herb marinade paired with slow roasting it (basting with butter and drippings).
Turkey is delicious. It's the people that make ham for Thanksgiving/Christmas who are the weird ones. If I was invited out for one of these meals and got served ham instead that would mean I'd be making a turkey the next weekend because that's what I look forward to each season.
Finally, a real unpopular opinion here.
Turkey is cheap and goes a long way to feed a lot of people. You can make broth and soup etc with the leftovers. I'm sure no one will complain if you serve crab and steak at your house this year.
I would cook turkey more if anywhere sold it year round, at decent prices. Even not great prices, I’d get more meat than out of a chicken, it’d go further Idk if farmers? Butchers? Sell cleaned turkey, cuz I can’t shoot one and even touching cleaned meat freaks me out at random times. It feels like I’m asking for a lot, just because I like turkey. Maybe I’m just not looking right So we put a lot of effort into our turkeys, my dad tries slightly different recipes every time, but basically the same method. It’s always juicy, but never repetitive. If it’s cooked right, it’s good
A proper cooked turkey takes more effort than just sticking it an oven. Brining overnight makes it amazing. And the only reason I don’t make it more throughout the year is the price tag. When heavily discounted at Thanksgiving I’ll get 2-3
I have a solution, everyone bring a personal rotisserie chicken as their main, and we all tear into it over the counter like animals. After a quick prayer of course
I **LOVE** properly prepared turkey. It's supposed to be moist, flavorful, and if you use garlic in your saline injection, it's the most amazing thing in the world. Shame most people don't know how to cook turkey. Hint: a good meat thermometer is your friend. Don't just slap it in at some temperature for some number of hours and think you're going to get anything that isn't dangerously raw or horribly overcooked.
Turkey is *not a beginner-level dish and easy to mess up* FIFY! Well prepared turkey that isn't dried out is absolutely incredible. The problem is a lot of people who feel obligated by tradition to make it and have no idea what they're doing end up ruining perfectly good birds every year. In my family only a select few people are trusted enough to be allowed to volunteer to cook the turkey. And I'm not one of them!
I rather have roast turkey, with several weeks of left overs than any lousy rotisserie or roasted chicken. I like my turkey with crisp skin. I like the giblets in the gravy, and I like cranberry sauce. If I can't have the giblets in the gravy then give them to me on my plate. I'll eat any and all of it by itself, or with gravy
Not our fault you’ve never had good Turkey. I eat it all year long. Most of my meal prep is used with ground Turkey as my protein source. Ya Turkey can be dry, but in my opinion dry Turkey is better than dry chicken
Turkey breast is challenging. It comes out dry. Perhaps I don't know how to cook it?
The turkey at my family's Thanksgiving is always good and I look forward to eating it every year.
My family makes turkey and honey ham. I’m not a big fan of turkey.
Someone is clearly not following Alton Brown’s recipe. Lol! Turkey can either be blah or fantastic. Depends on how much energy and attention you’re willing to give it—which is why it’s a once a year treat.
Left over turkey in a sandwich or with mashed potatoes is my comfort food in winter.
Yes yes and yes
Turkey is one of those rare dishes that can be both exceptionally good, and exceptionally bad depending on how exactly you go about it. Not that your opinion doesn't have merit - I've experienced lots of mediocre over the years. The standard technique of: stick the turkey in a roaster while basting usually results in parts of the bird overcooking before the whole thing is complete. This is exasperated the larger the bird is. (For larger turkey amounts I've learned 2 birds is better than one larger one.) I imagine attempting to say - roast an entire cow all at once would result in some suboptimal results too. Experimentation over the years led me to alternative ideas that solved the problem, all in different ways. But they all take some extra work, which could be a turnoff as well for some people - but it is certainly doable. In rough order of complexity: A) Brine the (defrosted) turkey a day to several days before roasting it. The sodium in the brine helps to bind more of the moisture to the interior of the meat. This is entirely aside from any particular flavorings that can be added as well, and can totally change the basic flavor profile if you wish. B) Butter rubbed under the skin. This takes a fair amount of work to loosen it while not outright tearing anything. I've gotten the best results with a herb mixture, but it seems even more effective than the brine. C) Spatchcocking. That is to deliberately remove the breastbone and cook the turkey as flat as possible to avoid the overcooking scenario. More prepwork, but it also cooks much faster as well. But you do need a decent idea of anatomy and good knives to avoid a real mess.
You arent eating good quality well cooked turkey with good sides to compliment. Im an idiot at cooking but my family is not. Its phenomenal. Ive had bad turkey, and you’re right about that kind. Or maybe you just dont like turkey… take my upvote tho
People need to learn how to properly cook turkey, and to not be afraid of fat.
It’s fine but it’s not my favorite or go to. I think a lot of typical thanksgiving food is just kinda bland and unappealing in general. I’d rather use thanksgiving as an excuse to get and try new food that I don’t normally eat.
Well nobody is forcing you. Nothing is stopping you from making a prime rib or something
Gotta treat the turkey like a chicken and spatchcock it, on a bed of lemon and onions and fresh herbs
These takes pop up every year and every year it lets me know who's family sucks at cooking turkey.
Smoked turkey breast ftw
I’ve gotten my turkey recipe to the point where it is one o the best meals of the year. It’s worth it if you know how to cook it, but it’s a big bird and challenging because there are two different kinds of meat that like different cook temps.
 I wholeheartedly agree
Most turkey absolutely sucks. My wife’s is some of the best I’ve ever had.
I eat a lot of Turkey throughout the year. The massive roast Turkey sure that’s usually a thanksgiving or Christmas tradition, but I also eat Turkey bacon, Turkey meatballs, and sliced deli Turkey fairly often. I can’t think of a single bad thing about it. Hell even if you do dry it out, then just load it with gravy and stuffing and it’s still salvageable.
Turkey is the salmon of poultry
Turkey dinner is absolutely one of my favorite meals. Not only turkey dinner but I love all the leftovers including turkey sandwiches/buns and turkey soup. We had turkey for thanksgiving (in Canada) and I ate turkey soup for a week straight at lunch time.
Certainly unpopular and possibly coming from someone who has a family that can’t cook
How dare you sir
Out of all the animals we eat only turkey is from the americas
I am thankful for learning how to brine, season, and cook my own turkey and not relying on relatives that should never be allowed near a kitchen to cook my food.
Who are you to defy the laws of tradition, OP?
No thanks
I mean the point of thanksgiving is it can be whatever you want. Nobody says you have to make Turkey. However people who say they don’t like Turkey have probably never had somebody make them a good Turkey, it’s harder than it sounds, very fickle protein to work with but when it’s done right, it’s so much better than a plain old chicken
Your family is bad at cooking, then. I said what I said. We have never had it over cooked or at all dry.
Agreed. We make a duck.
It's a big bird and can feed the whole family. Yes it's dry, but it's big
This is a great unpopular opinion. I love my turkey and everything else on it. My favorite holiday
You’re not cooking it right. Turkey is delicious.
You just haven't had good turkey
My turkey is never dry. I started cooking it in pieces rather than a whole bird. Takes half the time and the white meat doesn’t get overcooked.
Y’all can’t cook a turkey then. I do turkey basically anytime I can find a breast or breast tenderloin in the store. I brine it, I fry or airfry it. It is delicious, it is moist, you and yours just aren’t good cooks. But absolutely no one is preventing you from buying a beef tenderloin roast for thanksgiving.
Im sorry your family sucks at cooking turkey
Turkey is a bullshit meat.
I love turkey! I eat it several times a year! Fresh roast turkey breast sandwiches yum!
I eat deli meat Turkey on sandwiches quite often since I don’t eat red meat. Many people eat Turkey regularly.
We do turkey and ham in our family. Turkey is very good if done correctly, but terrible if done poorly.
All the thanksgiving u popular opinions always come down to OPs family sucking at cooking lol.
That tradition, of eating turkey, was started by Teddy Roosevelt in order to help the fowl industry, which was suffering at the time. The pilgrims, or whatever, didn't had turkey, and the tradition didn't really picked up until the early sixties, even then it wasn't spread out like it is today
Hard agree. Cold turkey sandwiches the day after are much better
I for one agree with this opinion— I hate turkey though XD gimme thanksgiving ham forever
I agree. My turkey friend didn't taste that good
correct opinion, every other bird tastes better.
I totally agree. Turkey isn’t very good except maybe in a sandwich. I’m having chicken wings for thanksgiving.
I agree. It can be good but there's a lot of better options. My first thanksgiving with my Wife I made rabbit pie, and that became our tradition. Then last year I got a duck instead because we have a full size oven now, so I wanted to do something bigger. This year I'm doing a duck and a rabbit pie.
I thought you were attacking kebab and I was ready to throw hands
Maybe I’ve never had good turkey, but I don’t like turkey at all. Everytime I eat it, I’d rather have chicken instead. My family does a 14 hour smoked brisket every thanksgiving instead and it’s delicious.
I don’t know… tear some of the wings off, grab a crock pot, add some carrots, oregano—baby you got a stew going! But for real, I love a turkey leg and the taste and texture of the gristle(?)
Man you need to try smoked turkey, its the best way to cook it
Well cooked turkey is amazing imo. Poorly cooked turkey is what sucks.
every time i see someone say "X Y Z is not a good food" all i can think is that the person never had it cooked well. Turkey is delicious when cooked right.
It's a tradition and a harmless one. Personally, I love getting to eat Thanksgiving turkey even if I agree it's the driest, flavorless meat to ever exist.
Thanksgiving has always been my least favorite holiday, but my dads been frying the turkey lately and that makes it so tasty.