Turkey Meatloaf

America's Test Kitchen has a video on exactly how to do this.

Yuk, what's next on your list, pumpkin pie popsicles? Cranberry Dip?

Ground poultry is problematic. I always think about the extra surface area and the reaction kinetics, or the pace of spoilage. I also imagine they grind up the poorer quality cuts, and I can imagine getting really, really sick if you undercook ground poultry. I know this potential is true of ground beef, too, but I remember how many people enjoyed beef tartare when I lived in France. You would not ever try that with ground poultry or pork. No, no.

Thanks R1. I'm going to give this a try. I can vouch for rolled oats as a secret ingredient from previous experience.

R3 - the Japanese eat raw chicken slices or torisashi. So the idea that you can’t ever eat raw poultry is wrong. You just need to trust the farming system a lot.

Why a turkey meatloaf? Budget?

R5 Interesting. I’d be wary depending on the regulatory climate for farming and handling poultry, and now probably pork and beef. I think they changed the speed at which meat moves on a conveyer when it is inspected, so the potential for spoilage is greater. It’s my own bias, having been really sick from a bowl (a spoonful) of Turkey soup prepared with spoiled sandwich meat a long, long time ago. A terrible experience.

Why stop there, how about a Trudunken meatloaf.

The truth about a classic Turkey Dinner is that it's mostly chicken. It has more flavor so if you really dig down in the most recipes there is a lot of chicken stock in everything from gravy to stuffing.

You didn't look very hard OP. The Barefoot Countessa has a second version of meatloaf from one of her favorite restaurants that DOES NOT have ketchup of any kind. I have actually made it, really good with the sauce. Swapping it with Turkey could probably work.

R6 For Christmas. There are only three of us this year. I would usually just roast some legs but my local market is selling minced Turkey breast and minced Turkey dark meat and my interest was piqued. And we can make hash for breakfast with the leftovers.

Plus, I’m Australian, and we don’t eat turkey the way Americans do, and it’s reasonably expensive. It’s your native fowl but here turkey bacon, turkey sausage and turkey burgers etc aren’t a thing. A turkey meatloaf is pretty exotic for me.

[quote] Ground poultry is problematic. I always think about the extra surface area and the reaction kinetics, or the pace of spoilage. I also imagine they grind up the poorer quality cuts, and I can imagine getting really, really sick if you undercook ground poultry

Sure, but it’s reasonably easy to not undercooked meat.

Just do a turkey breast, fast, easy, no bones, no giant carcass to deal with, no stuffing it with things. You dont even have to chop up vegetables like you would for a meatloaf. They sell just the breast in most supermarkets. It looks like a small roast.

R13 I ordered a small Turkey breast from Dartagnan and will make stuffing separately in a cast iron casserole dish called a cocotte. It works well and, yes, no giant carcass to deal with (I wish I liked Turkey Soup, but don’t, really). The post above is right, I do use chicken stock to flavor my stuffing when I make it separate, but I use a good quality one. My stuffing is really traditional (sautéed onion, plain bread, sage, black pepper, chicken stock, all loosely piled into a cast iron pot). The cast iron surface heats up and makes all sides of the mass very crisp, so it’s like a savory bread pudding. It’s good. Sometimes stuffing prepared inside the bird itself is soggy with bits of entrails and things in it (that’s why some chefs remove the stuffing and throw it under the broiler while the Turkey ‘rests’ before carving.

Stove Top stuffing mix used to have a recipe for meatloaf that called for the stuffing as an ingredient on the back of the box. I tried it with the standard meatloaf mix and a tomato based sauce. I wasn't too crazy about it, personally though. You could definitely taste the distinct Stove Top flavoring through it all. Though that might work to your advantage with something like ground turkey. I would definitely add fresh herbs in addition to the onions, and maybe even add some turkey gravy to the loaf itself when mixing it.

Katie Lee's Fall Meatloaf, which incorporates a lot of Thanksgiving items (turkey, stuffing mix, sweet potato, cranberry) into one recipe. I made it last year,

When it comes to OP, lack of fat is hardly the issue.

[quote]The truth about a classic Turkey Dinner is that it's mostly chicken. It has more flavor so if you really dig down in the most recipes there is a lot of chicken stock in everything from gravy to stuffing.

A classic turkey dinner doesn't require "chicken stock". You can get everything you need using the offal from the turkey. You use the juices/drippings in the pan to start the gravy. The stuffing is done inside the bird unless you're victim to bouts of EXTREME paranoia or have some kind of compromised immune system that would cause you to drop dead if someone sneezed twenty feet away.

I hope it works r10. This recipe, and the America’s Test Kitchen one in r1, are the ones smothered in ketchup.

[quote] the stuffing contains lots of water

Be sure to drain it.

[quote] [R3] - the Japanese eat raw chicken slices or torisashi. So the idea that you can’t ever eat raw poultry is wrong. You just need to trust the farming system a lot.

I have also had raw inoshishi (wild board) sashimi at a resort in the mountains in Japan. I cannot say that I liked it any more than I liked basashi (horse sashimi).

[quote] with gravy on the side

Sauce.

Wild board game.

Are you a lezzie, OP? "Turkey meatloaf" sounds like a dyke dish. Just sayin'.

Of course not r24. Tofurkey with a side of nutloaf with parsnip gravy. Now there’s a Lesbian Holiday meal for you.

OP, I've often wondered why so many attempt making a turkey meatloaf taste of beef, or dress it with ketchup. I'm not keen on turkey, yet if I were to eat a turkey meatloaf, I would want that sage stuffing flavour, and a chicken or turkey gravy as the appropriate complement to it.

If you're not averse to eating pork, try adding some sage pork sausage mince to your loaf. If pork isn't your thing, perhaps add some rendered chicken fat to make up for the leanness of the ground turkey.

Please be sure to pop back in and let us know of your results I'm intrigued.

Turkey meatloaf needs shredded veggies for moistness--carrots, onions, celery--and intense flavoring because it has none of its own. You can go Cajun (bell peppers, onions, celery, honey-Worcestershire glaze) or Pan Asian (ginger, garlic, scallions, hoisin glaze) or BBQ flavors. If I wanted to get traditional Thanksgiving flavors with ground turkey, I would do a turkey burger, cranberry chutney sauce, sweet potato fries and skip the stuffing. Or meatballs with whipped sweet potatoes. cranberry sauce and corn bread.

Those are great ideas, thanks r26 and r27.

And speaking of Corn Bread, r27, can you make it from polenta-style cornmeal or does it need to be a different grade ground corn?

Gwyneth Paltrow, of all people, provided a recipe for turkey burgers in one of her first goop newsletters. There was a recipe for a celery and onion stuffing which was place in the interior of the turkey burger prior to grilling.

here's a few things-

celery has a lot of moisture. I use it sparingly but love the celery salt.

I make mine half and half with ground beef which has a firmer texture.

onions have to be chopped fine if you want to slice the loaf into slices that don't crumble.

a chef I once knew told me to throw in a packet of onion soup mix and an egg. also fistful of stuffing (not stove top,too salty and too many fake flavors)

good luck

Don't forget the hard-boiled eggs!

These turkey meatballs are very good and have all the thanksgiving flavors. The recipe could easily be made into a meatloaf.

Stovetop brand stuffing works best as the filler.

I would try a roll up style meatloaf, using stuffing mix as the filling. Maybe concoct some type of cranberry glaze to coat it with instead of the ketchup ones. I think with the ground turkey, you’d need to add a couple eggs and maybe a bit of milk to help with moisture.

I use Bob's Red Mill organic medium grind. White is supposedly best but I can never find it so I buy the yellow.

I think Polenta is finely milled.

There's never enough gravy, IME. Even if you use the neck and the organ meats. So I can see how chicken stock / broth might end up in the gravy. Gravy can go on everything: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, etc.

Ground Turkey doesn't have a strong flavor on its own, so if you use onion and sage, (or poultry seasoning), you will already be on your way to something that smells and tastes like Thanksgiving. There's no reason you can't baste it with butter, if you want even more of the smell and flavor. It's low in fat, so you have room to add some. I would think serving it with dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and other traditional thanksgiving foods would be fine. I would definitely form it into a loaf, and use 2-3 eggs and breadcrumbs or panko to hold it together. Ground turkey is definitely more crumbly than ground beef, so it needs more binders. I think you'd want something you can slice. However, another option would be to buy ground turkey Italian sausage, and precook it, then add it to a cornbread stuffing mix, like Mrs Cubbisons along with celery and onion, butter and chicken broth. I have made that kind of dressing many times and it has a definite flavor that says Thanksgiving.

If you have your own grinder it is easy to make a wonderful turkey meatloaf.

The secret is duck, buy two duck thighs and bone them, grind them skin on and the extra fat helps enormously. Use primarily dark meat.

Make the dressing the way you like.

No ketchup or any other sweet stuff. Use the sage onion etc, follow your instincts. Make a dressing base on the bottom of the pan. Free form the turkey meatloaf on the dressing mix. Roast til done. Slice and serve with gravy.

Christ, OP...just go to a restaurant and order a turkey dinner.

Use half turkey and half beef.

R16 was it good???

I don’t know Katie Lee’s recipes. She uses ketchup. I don’t know, maybe it is essential.

R38 That all sounds luscious.

A panade of bread and milk should help keep it moist. I always use that when I'm making meatballs.

Why do people use ketchup as a meatloaf glaze, anyway?

I normally will add ground turkey to my ground beef when making meatloaf, why do you have to have it all ground turkey?

Thoughts?

Make the goop Thanksgiving turkey burgers pinwheeled with the goop classic bread stuffing and glazed with goop cranberry ketchup - with a few key changes.

2. Make the stuffing as directed, but add butter, a dash of good-tasting brandy, toasted pecans and orange juice-hydrated dried cranberries. And in addition to the rosemary and parsley, add sage and thyme for a Scarborough Fair flavour.

I’m not a fan of ground poultry but I’ve tried to incorporate it in my meat-eating diet. It never really worked. Here’s why: the best turkey loaf I ever made had a quarter cup of rendered chicken fat in it which kind of negated the whole healthy aspect of it.

[quote]Why do people use ketchup as a meatloaf glaze, anyway?

Because sweet-and-sour tastes good on meatloaf. I don't use ketchup. Instead, I mix some pureed whole tomatoes, mustard, brown sugar, and worcestershire sauce, and use that as a glaze.

^ And some red wine vinegar.

- r50

I don’t eat turkey for health but because it’s sort of a festive protein.

I wouldn’t make turkey meatloaf, or turkey generally, outside of the an “occasion”.

As turkey meatloaf recipes go, I agree that the ATK recipe at R1 is a good one. I don't care for the ketchup on top either, so I just leave it off. ATK also has a good recipe for turkey burgers that can be simplified, but still makes excellent turkey burgers

I can't remember specifics, but ATK had all this info on why it's so hard to cook with ground turkey or chicken meat and what you need to do to basically make it edible.

OP maybe try making a form of Shepherd’s Pie, but make the meat layer of ground Turkey, onion, celery (or celery salt ingeniously suggested above), sage, black pepper, kosher salt. They also sell Turkey stock that is not too expensive. I’d probably prepare a turkey “mince’ on top of the range and layer that on top of the mashed potato. In cooking the mince, ladle in the hot Turkey stock and cook it on high until much of the water evaporates, to concentrate the Turkey flavoring, like when adding stock to risotto. Add more before layering in the pan. You might want to add a stuffing layer, too, and maybe broil it for a few minutes to crisp the top stuffing layer. Dice the aromatics fine to distribute their moisture into the mince, and heat it on high to add layers of flavor. Good luck, “gobble gobble.”

Does garlic go well with turkey? I am using onion, celery and other spices but I think garlic may overwhelm the flavours.

And why did you bump an old thread r55?

Go mince your turkey ass.

Are we in a bump the dead threads period?

Wouldn’t you have to pre-boil and blanch sweet potatoes? I like the idea of them (with nutmeg and ginger included), but don’t think they would meld in the loaf.

As for a glaze, I would like to see a cranberry/pomegranate concoction.

Why not turkey balls and just the one towel OP? This is DL after all!

R56 it’s my old thread. 🧍‍♂️

Ground turkey is just kind of a weird consistency. Make something that's supposed to have beef in it and it feels a little off. Turkey chili always seems like it's not right.

Blimey this thread is like bringing back the dead! OP have you tried using venison instead of turkey? Like the Chinese do, get 2 sharp knives and 'mince' your pieces of venison to your desired texture. Pre saute your finely cut shallots, thyme, sage etc in a pan. I add a tin of lentils, mashed up a bit and panko crumbs, touch of Soy and Worcester sauce, salt and ground pepper. Mix together, place in a loaf tin, brush with BBQ sauce and cook for about an hour at 375F/190C. Drain the juices from the tin into a pan, add some beef stock and make a thin jus. I'm not American so don't use milk or egg in my meatloaves.

I don’t see the value of garlic in a turkey meatloaf.

[quote]don't use milk or egg in my meatloaves.

No panade? No meatloaf.

I like turkey, but not ground up, where does the flavor go? Why even eat it?