Entire turkey sous vide

[Major Nikon]

I’ve done whole chickens and quartered turkeys sous vide before. This time I wanted to go a bit more ambitious and do a whole turkey. My turkey was 14 lbs. It just fit inside a 2.5 gallon ziplock and I double bagged it to be safe. The fit was a bit tight. In the future I think I’ll look at larger bags that are thicker.

Assuming you have a bag big enough for the turkey, the next challenge is finding a big enough water vessel. I used a plastic storage bin with a hole drilled out in the lid for the circulator. I didn’t measure the bin, but I’m guessing it holds something between 5-10 gallons. I have the Joule circulator and it worked just fine. I’m not sore if a lower wattage model could heat that much water, so best to experiment first. Using a cooler would probably cut down on the wattage required.

After I removed the neck and giblets into the bags it went with some sprigs of rosemary and thyme stuck in the cavity. Two quarts of commercial chicken broth was added and I used a sink full of water to displace the broth before sealing the bags.

The turkey was placed in a 150F water bath for 24 hours. I took it out, drained and reserved the broth and placed the turkey on a rack inside a sheet pan. After a 1 hour rest I brushed on melted butter all over the skin and baked in a 450F oven for 30 mins.

Everything about the turkey was perfect. The skin had a perfect crispness. The meat was tender and moist, but not mushy. All of the connective tissue was turned into gelatin so it was super easy to carve. All the meat pulled away from the bone very easily so all that was left was bone and cartilage.

I had enough very flavorful broth to make giblet gravy with plenty left over for gumbo.

[Turbineguy]

1. Nice!

And Gumbo too!

[Major Nikon]

2. I always like to make gumbo with the leftovers

What I have done in the past is simmer the turkey carcass in water along with some root vegetables and herbs. This provides stock while making the meat easy to remove. This method makes that extra step unnecessary.

[Major Nikon]

3. A note on using large bags

You don’t have to seal the bags when doing sous vide as long as your bag is large enough to keep the open end out of the water bath. What I will often do is just drape the bag over the side and clamp it in place. This helps to keep the item from floating and it also makes it simple to add liquids to the recipe.

[Karadeniz]

4. Ummmmm, delish!❤