Fifteen pounds of turkey!

[woodsprite]

Hi all. Our family planned to have our t'giving dinner later due to everyone's schedule. I messed that up by ending up in the hospital for emergency hernia surgery the night before. Before I went to the ER, I was walking our daughter through fixing our turkey. They chose to wait for me to get out of the hospital to actually have our family dinner, so I came home to 2 huge ziplock bags of dry turkey (one for light meat, one for dark - no gravy added). Now it's all frozen into a ball

Any ideas of how to deal with this? I'm assuming I'll have to thaw the bags as a whole in the fridge, but can I then portion it out, add gravy, and refreeze, or make them into leftovers like turkey enchiladas, etc and freeze? It's all still pretty fresh (turkey was cooked on 11/27). This is not something I want to be dealing with now, but I want to do something with it before it gets freezer burn.

Looking for any ideas

[Phoenix61]

1. You could always take a clean hacksaw to it.

Saw it into portion sizes and pop back into the freezer.

[flying_wahini]

2. Just Let it thaw and break it apart gently.

Use it just like you would in leftovers. The enchiladas sound great.

Maybe a “dressing” casserole with a jar of turkey gravy and some poultry seasoning.

Soup or a stew would be nice; just add carrots, celery, onions and whatever else you like.

[trof]

9. Rissoles

Make dressing and form it into patties and sauté'.
Yum

[hippywife]

3. If you thaw it out in the fridge...

it can be refrozen, but not if thawed by any other method.

[littlewolf]

4. found this should help...

https://eatwithus.net/other-useful/can-you-refreeze-cooked-turkey-that-was-previously-frozen/

Cooked or uncooked turkey can securely be refrozen, as long as you refreeze it within 3 days of thawing. You need to just refreeze turkey if it’s been managed appropriately at every action along the way. … Turkey that has been defrosted on the counter or neglected for extended periods should not be refrozen.
You can prepare frozen meat and fish when defrosted, and then refreeze them. You can refreeze prepared meat and fish once, as long as they have been cooled before entering into the freezer. … Frozen raw foods can be defrosted once and saved in the fridge for approximately 24 hours before they need to be prepared or thrown away.

hope this helps ....
potpie with lots of gravy should help ...

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. Make a huge pot of turkey soup and then freeze in smaller portions

That you can thaw out for meals over time. I have lots of the plastic tubs from takeout places which are great for this.

Soup doesn't really 'freezer burn' and the fact that you basically boil the turkey after first defrost means it should be fine to re-freeze.

Just a thought

[ragemage]

6. This is a great Turkey Soup recipe

When my next door neighbor said she was making turkey soup, I was thinking WTF? Turkey in soup? But damn, was it good. My whole family loved it. We used it with leftover chicken too, and it works just as well. Try it out with some of the turkey:
https://www.melskitchencafe.com/the-best-leftover-turkey-soup/

[IA8IT]

7. Your recovery and rehabilitation should preclude you from fixing elaborate dinners so soon.

Let them finish.

Wink Wink!!

[Warpy]

8. Save it for next summer when holiday turkey overload is a distant memory

and then have a party with turkey hash, turkey salad, turkey sandwiches.

You can partially defrost the stuff and peel off the outer layers to eat or refreeze in smaller portions. There are gravy mixes that will work for open faced turkey sandwiches, good on those "I don't wanna cook" nights.

Turkey hash: https://www.thespruceeats.com/turkey-hash-with-vegetables-and-gravy-3061875 Don't use salt, processed food gravy will cover that.

Turkey salad https://www.jessicagavin.com/turkey-salad/ This is a little like mine although I loathe cranberries so I use either apple or seedless white grapes in season. I also don't use rosemary but I'm willing to try it.

Another option is the turkey and broccoli casserole, if you're willing to do your own cheese sauce (the prefab stuff being awful). https://www.thespruceeats.com/turkey-divan-recipe-3061812 is again close to mine, although I add a little nutmeg to the sauce and use bread crumbs on the top instead of Parmesan, bread crumbs are a hell of a lot cheaper.

15 pounds of turkey in one big, frozen lump need not be that intimidating once you realize that partial thawing in the fridge will net you usable amounts, leaving the core solidly frozen and ready to go back to haunting the freezer until you work down to it and thaw it out to eat by late summer.

Next year, you might still be sick enough of turkey to try capons or go into hock for a beef roast.

[Old Crank]

10. We did a late thanksgiving

Which is normal for us since I'm in Germany and there is no holiday for guests.

Our 11 pound, 5.4 Kilo, bird went as follows:
Dinner for 6 adults and on child
Turkey pot pie, 4, using potatoes for the topping. Sheppard's pie?
Turkey soup. Enough for 2 meals. Broth made form carcass, remaining meat from carcass after cooking to a small bowl for the dog.
2 turkey sandwiches
I now have one breast and drumstick to shred and simmer with tomatillos and peppers for some Mexican dinner.
Turkey is so versatile.

[Emile]

11. Make a huge turkey pot pie 🥧!

Last edited Wed Dec 7, 2022, 07:54 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/215447/dads-leftover-turkey-pot-pie/

[Retrograde]

12. Chili verde

A can of tomatillos (if you can't get fresh), various green chiles, a lot of cilantro (or not, if you don't like it), and turkey: it's a milder chili that goes well with poultry - and it adds moisture.