Thanksgiving Turkey in a slow cooker?

I've done a Smoker and a deep fat fryer but never a slow cooker. Looks like it could work

I don't do it any other way for the two of us! (Except when I do everything-in-one-lump turkey loaf. )

Consult your cooker instructions for timing. Pot-sized portions are pretty easy to come by these days:

http://www.butterball.com/products/turkey-roasts-and-whole-breasts/boneless-turkey-roast

I love that I can do the meat and then have plenty of stock for all the fixings. And the house smells just as yummy as when you've got an oven going.

I've never done a turkey, but I can tell you I regularly do whole chicken in the crock pot and it turns out well. I've also never stuffed it, so I can't speak for how that will turn out. But they are right when they say "it carves itself"! I essentially pull the pieces out with tongs when it's done, and there's more than enough stock/liquid to make gravy with, if that's your thing, or even save it for soup or rice or something.

I'm assuming you have a really, really big slow cooker, and mean to cook a really small turkey?

I've cooked whole chickens in the crockpot, not turkeys, but as long as the relative size of bird and pot permit it's certainly possible. Keep in mind that a slow-cooker is always moist cooking without evaporation -- if you start out with no liquid in the pot, you'll end up with a fair bit of liquid anyway (use it to make gravy!), and the skin is going to end up soft, flabby and nasty-looking. There's no way to get it crisp and pretty in a slow cooker, don't even try.

A couple more points:
1) For food safety reasons I would be even more reluctant to stuff a bird to cook in a slow-cooker than an oven bird. Slow cookers are named so for a reason, and stuffing inside the bird is liable to cook up a good batch of bacteriological nasties. You'd be much safer cooking the stuffing separately.

2) White meat is prone to drying out badly in a slow cooker. Boneless skinless chicken breasts are pretty much impossible to cook in one, unless you like them dried out and rubbery. Whole chickens fare a little better, but not perfectly (some people find the white meat unpalatable even then, or good only as pulled-chicken drenched in sauce). Turkey breasts tend to be on the dry side at the best of times. Given that a slow-cooker turkey can never be a visual treat (pale, flabby skin!), you my want to consider cooking up a bunch of dark-meat turkey parts instead of a whole bird. Dark meat loves slow cookers.

What Benbenberi said.

You can certainly cook it in a slow cooker and it will be tasty, but it won't resemble what you are used to when you cook a roast turkey. You will have very moist meat that is steamed/braised which is a different flavour than roasting.

Do you have a barbeque? You could certainly cook it on a barbeque, we go to a friend's cottage every Thanksgiving and they only have a bbq to cook on - he puts it in an open pan on top of the grills closes the lid, and basically uses the bbq as an oven. The turkey is always terrific just make sure you have a meat thermometer handy to test for doneness since BBQ imparts a pink colour to the flesh no matter how long it's cooked. They also make their buns on the bbq - as well as their pumpkin pie!

Here's a youtube video on the method, but if you google "cooking a turkey on Barbeque" other links come up as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggusuopSVbk

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but don't temperatures have to reach a certain point to safely cook poultry? And isn't a slow cooker significantly below that point?

While it does take a while to get up to maximum temperature, it will get above the temp needed to kill bacteria. The method is really braising and the liquid accumulated will actually boil (slowly).

Sassy - if you are really going to go for a slow-cooked turkey, I strongly suggest you get some turkey pieces and try it before the Big Day. For me, poultry cooked in my slow cooker has always taken on a texture I disliked, an odd combination of rubbery and mushy. Also, I've frequently seen the suggestion to just put poultry under the broiler to "crisp up" the skin, but after a few hours in a slow cooker the skin is rendered of all fat and steamed to flabbiness and no amount of direct heat will make it crispy again. But MMV when it comes to recipes and you may find slow cooker turkey works for you. I just think it's worth a preliminary experiment to be certain.

The one year I was without an oven when Thanksgiving rolled around, I knocked on all my neighbor's doors until I found someone who was travelling for the holiday and willing to let me borrow hers. My back-up plans were to use the outdoor grill (in the snow) or to get cooked-to-order take-out turkey or to cook the bird the night before at a friend's house, slice it and warm it the next day in the microwave.

I wonder if brining the bird first would help with the texture at all?

The drying out and texture problems in the slow cooker are most pronounced when you're dealing with poultry & meat cuts that are lacking internal fat & cartilage -- white meat, steaks, etc. With long cooking the proteins just shrivel up and expel all their moisture. Cooking in liquid doesn't help at all - you just end up with wet dried out stringy rubbery meat. I suppose brining may slow it down.

But you're better off using the types of meat/bird that naturally do well in that kind of cooking environment. With turkey and chickens, that means legs & thighs. The slow cooker makes them rich and tender as the gelatin melts & tough fibers break down.

HOWEVER -- It may be a cheating solution, but to get a nice roasted turkey without an oven you may want to consider outsourcing! Around here there are a lot of places that will sell you a nice ready-for-table roast turkey for Thanksgiving, with or without the trimmings. I did that once & had a good experience -- picked up a freshly-roasted turkey with the trimmings hot from the store on Thanksgiving morning, drove 4 hours to a rental-house get-together, and had a lovely still-warm bird with friends and family. It's obviously not the same as home-cooked, but it may get you closer to classic Thanksgiving fare than the slow-cooker solution.

benbenberi said:

HOWEVER -- It may be a cheating solution, but to get a nice roasted turkey without an oven you may want to consider outsourcing! Around here there are a lot of places that will sell you a nice ready-for-table roast turkey for Thanksgiving, with or without the trimmings. I did that once & had a good experience -- picked up a freshly-roasted turkey with the trimmings hot from the store on Thanksgiving morning, drove 4 hours to a rental-house get-together, and had a lovely still-warm bird with friends and family. It's obviously not the same as home-cooked, but it may get you closer to classic Thanksgiving fare than the slow-cooker solution.

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I'm with Ben, outsource if it is an option where you live. Just thinking about a turkey in the slow cooker is UGH. And it would have to be an awfully small turkey. I've done a whole chicken in the micro numerous times. Breast down in a covered Corning ware for 20 minutes on high. Turn it breast up, another 20 minutes covered. Let it stand about 10 minutes.

MM

If you were going to invest in a giant crock, you might also consider a counter top convection oven. Some come with rotisserie adapters. The most common detractor I see in reviews is poor temperature control/does not achieve maximum temperature advertised.

You can always butcher a large carcass to get it to fit the appliance(s) you have on hand (pan sear the skin & finish off in microwave, for example). Do a test run with a chicken to get the hang of things.

Me, I'd take it to the hostess' kitchen, loudly and firmly assuring her that I'd be responsible for cooking it, because she is so busy as it is, and I feel SO badly that I couldn't do it at my own house as I'd promised. And I would thank her profusely for letting me make use of her oven and apologize for any inconvenience and basically overwhelm her with my urgent need to cook the bird myself. Any chance that would work for you?
(But if she insisted on doing it, after I did my best to get her to let me do it, I'd just let it go. Eh, things like broken stoves happen, it's just one meal, there are worse things than dry turkey, and there's always next year . . . )

If you were thinking about getting a bigger crockpot anyway, consider an electric roaster. They cost between $25-$90 depending. My mother cooked the turkey that way most of my life, the oven (we almost always only had one) was needed for yams and pies.

On google just type in electric roaster. It will give you a plethora of choices of brand and store. Both WallyWorld and Target seem to have quite a selection.

MM

Yeah, MaryMumsy beat me to it. I was going to say a Nesco roaster, too.

I can't imagine how rubbery it would be in a crockpot. We used to make chicken breast dinners in ours and the kids never liked them for that reason. Plus, they don't brown.

The roasters like this http://www.walmart.com/ip/Hamilton-Beach-22-Quart-Roaster-Oven-Stainless-Steel/14320882 work well. Both of our families have used them before with success.

In the past, I've read about putting foil balls or a grate in the bottom of the slow cooker if you aren't putting other liquid in there to raise the bird up and allow it to get a bit of a crust.

tjwriter said:

The roasters like this http://www.walmart.com/ip/Hamilton-Beach-22-Quart-Roaster-Oven-Stainless-Steel/14320882 work well. Both of our families have used them before with success.

In the past, I've read about putting foil balls or a grate in the bottom of the slow cooker if you aren't putting other liquid in there to raise the bird up and allow it to get a bit of a crust.

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The problem is the turkey itself will render enough liquid to steam the meat. The whole process is designed to be a slow braise so there won't be any carmelization at all.

True, but it does work to a certain degree. I've done it before. It's not perfect, but there is impact.

If you have a small (10-12 lb) turkey, you MIGHT be able to cook it whole in a 10+ quart crock pot, BUT:

• it would be a tight fit (and no possibility of actual skin browning/crisping no matter how many foil balls you sit under the bird - that baby's steaming, not baking)

• a crock pot big enough to cook a whole turkey is pretty useless for other purposes - for normal cooking for 2, a 5 quart crock pot is the optimal size; a giant crock pot would just be a giant dust-catcher 364 days a year

• if you can't control the size of turkey you get, you're likely to end up with one that's too big for the giant crock pot anyway

IMO your best bet is to become the turkey cook at the hostess's house, as ketzel suggests. If you really want to invest in an appliance, the electric roaster would be the way to go, much more practical than a giant crock pot.

It helps if you kill the bird first.




Just sayin'.

caw

SWest said:

If you were going to invest in a giant crock, you might also consider a counter top convection oven. Some come with rotisserie adapters. The most common detractor I see in reviews is poor temperature control/does not achieve maximum temperature advertised.

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This was what I was going to suggest. I used to have a combination microwave/convection oven, and used it all the time; it worked really well.

There are lots of options for countertop oven-type appliances, so it's worth a look.

You can always butcher a large carcass to get it to fit the appliance(s) you have on hand (pan sear the skin & finish off in microwave, for example). Do a test run with a chicken to get the hang of things.

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Stovetop/pan cooking is an option, too, yeah. You can butcher the turkey, pan sear it, and braise it on the stovetop, and you'll probably get a decently crisp skin that way. You may not want to use all that stovetop space, though.