turkey

How to Cook Turkey for the Freezer in the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker

March 22, 2017 by Tiffany 8 Comments

Welcome back to our next post in the Cooking Meat for the Freezer in the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker! If you happened to miss last week’s post you can catch up by clicking on this link: How to Cook Beef for the Freezer in the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker.

This week we’ll be sharing some tips and recipes focusing on turkey. And just in case you didn’t know, turkey is great every month of the year, not just in November.

One of the beautiful things about turkey is that you can easily use it in place of chicken in so many recipes. It allows for a slight change of pace and it’s really easy to cook up lots of it to freeze ahead and add to recipes in a flash.

You will want to consider using a smaller turkey, or cutting it up before cooking because they are so much larger than chicken and typically will not fit in an instant pot whole.

How to Cook Turkey for the Freezer in the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker

The Instant Pot Pressure Cooker is a great way to cook a turkey breast. Be warned though – a whole turkey won’t fit inside a pressure cooker, unless it’s very small. You’ll want to use a turkey breast or boneless turkey roast instead.

Add at least 2 cups of water or more. You can also add onions, celery, salt, pepper and other seasonings as you like.

Turkey cook times:

Boneless turkey roast: 15-20 minutes thawed or 30-35 minutes frozen
Turkey breast with bones: 25-30 minutes thawed or 40-50 minutes frozen

Here’s a quick video for you with tips for cooking a turkey breast in your pressure cooker.

Ideas for using frozen cooked turkey

Substitute the chicken in any of these for Turkey cooked in the instant pot.

Turkey Broccoli Picnic Pita Pockets

Creamy Turkey Florentine Quesadillas

White Enchiladas

15 Minute Skillet Turkey Curry

Turkey and Wild Rice Soup

Easy Turkey and Tortellini Kale Soup – substitute turkey for the chicken in this recipe.

Turkey Casserole

Quick and Easy Chipotle Turkey Bowls

Mandarin Turkey and Rice Bake

Easy Turkey Alfredo Pasta Bake

Get more ideas for recipes you can swap Chicken for Turkey in this post of 30 ways to use up leftover Thanksgiving Turkey. And then there’s also this post 10 Recipes to Use Costco Rotisserie Chicken (or Leftover Turkey) and you’ll find even more ideas for using turkey in this post Ingredient Spotlight: How to Use Leftover Turkey

Tips for freezing cooked turkey

Zip top freezer bags, freezer tape and a sharpie or two are your best friends here. Since cooked turkey can be frozen for 3 to 4 months, you’ll want to label each bag and include the date it was cooked.

A good rule of thumb is about 3 cups of cooked turkey per bag. If you have a specific recipe in mind for your turkey, you’ll find some good ones listed in the next section, then include further prep instructions and sides that you may want to add.

Be sure to cool your cooked turkey before sealing it in the zip top bags to prevent ice build up and freezer burn.

For more extensive tips on everything you ever wanted to know about storing meats in the freezer, check out this post about Freezer Cooking. And then there’s this post with all sorts of Tips and a Recipe Roundup of Freezer Meals

If you are new to pressure cooking and the instant pot, check out my honest review of two brands I own, the Instant Pot vs. Cuisinart

What are you cooking in your Instant Pot?

If you own an instant pot, what meats have you already cooked in yours? And if it’s still on your wish list, where would you start? New appliances can be a bit intimidating, but hopefully, you’ll find enough inspiration here to tackle you Instant Pot and be an expert in no time.

If you’re already enjoying your Instapot, then you’ll want to check out my 10 Best Instant Pot Accessories post to see how you can do even more with your new appliance.

And for those of you still dreaming of your Instant Pot, you can use your slow cooker in the meantime. Whichever method you choose, having your meats already cooked and frozen sure does cut down the time and stress of fixing dinner.

We’ll have more meats, tips and recipes for you in the coming weeks, so be sure to check back.

Homemade Turkey Sausage Burgers

September 2, 2015 by Tiffany King 1 Comment

This recipe is a breakfast-y spin on burgers. It’s also a great way to take plain, ground turkey and season it like sausage. I’m all about using what you’ve got on hand, and I’m more likely to have ground turkey than sausage. But I do make sure to keep the pantry stocked with McCormick spices, so seasoning the meat is a great option.

I served the turkey sausage burgers, draped with melted Colby-Jack cheese, piled high with lettuce and tomato stacked on toasted English muffins. A bit of mayo topped things off.

Eat this sandwich for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. No matter what meal, you won’t be disappointed. If you like eggs, try add a poached egg on top of the sausage.

Here’s what you’ll need to make the turkey sausage burgers:

Print Recipe

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Homemade Turkey Sausage Burgers

Servings: servings

Ingredients

2 lbs. Ground turkey
1 1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. Black pepper
1 1/2 tsp. Rubbed sage
1 1/2 tsp. Ground thyme
1 tsp. Rosemary
1/4 tsp. Smoked paprika
1 Tbs. Brown sugar
6 slices Colby-Jack or Cheddar cheese
English muffins
Lettuce and tomato
Mayonnaise

Instructions

Mix the turkey, all the spices and the brown sugar together until well combined.
Form the meat into 6 patties.
Grill or cook in a skillet until cooked through.
Top the patties with cheese.
Serve on toasted English muffins, topped with lettuce and tomato and served with mayonnaise.

Feel free to vary the spices and herbs to your own taste. If you like spicy things, you might like to add McCormick Red Pepper Flakes or Cayenne Pepper to the mix.

Have you ever heard the term “breakfastarian”? I’m pretty sure I could fall into that category, because I love breakfast at any time of the day. If that describes you too, you’ll love these Turkey Sausage Burgers!

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by McCormick. All opinions are my own.

Turkey Breast in the Slow Cooker

January 4, 2013 by Tiffany King 60 Comments

Does anyone else feel like they can only have turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas?! I’m not sure why I am 40 years old and have always relied on my mama for turkey. Well, I have news for all us turkey cooking ‘fraid-y cats. It’s easy! As a matter of fact, you can cook a turkey breast right in your crock pot!

After getting a great deal on a turkey breast the other day, I started thinking about how I wanted to ~~attempt to~~ cook it. I knew you could cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker so I didn’t see why you couldn’t do turkey as well. Sure enough, I found a recipe at A Year of Slow Cooking. I changed it up a little, and the end result was fantastic!

Print Recipe

4.19 from 11 votes

Turkey Breast in the Slow Cooker

Ingredients

4-6 lb turkey breast
2 cups white wine*
1 onion peeled and quartered
1/4 cup butter
handful of parsley optional
1-2 celery stalks halved
salt and pepper to taste
*apple juice or chicken broth can be used in place of wine.

Instructions

Wash and pat dry turkey breast.
Sprinkle well with salt and pepper.
Place breast side down in cooker.
Add onion, parsley, celery, and butter into cavity.
Pour wine over top of breast.
Cook 4-6 hours on high or 7-9 on low (internal temp should read 170 on meat thermometer)

The turkey was moist and flavorful! I think if you leave the skin on, you could probably omit the butter altogether. I reduced the amount by half from the original recipe and it was fine. Also, you can add any seasonings to your turkey that you like. For serving, I removed the skin, and the meat came off the bones so easily! I loved the flavor that the wine gave, but as noted in the recipe, you could easily substitute another liquid. (The alcohol cooks out of the wine, and my kids did not notice any unusual flavor, but I did notice the wine a little.) I’m so excited that I have discovered such an easy way to prepare turkey!

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Kentucky Hot Brown Bake

September 27, 2012 by Tiffany King 253 Comments

This is not your traditional Kentucky Hot Brown. If you’ve ever had the real deal, then you already know that. If you’ve never had a Hot Brown, here’s a description for you: Turkey, bacon, tomato on toast, served under so much cheese sauce that you can’t find the sandwich. Amazing!

This bake is adapted from a recipe I found via Pinterest on Mr. Food for Italian Layer Bake. I adapted the layers to make it a KY Hot Brown Bake.

This bake is easy to put together, although you do need to allow time for it to bake and set a few minutes before serving. It’s delicious, with gooey cheese and bacon. Everyone in the family loved this one.

Here’s what you’ll need: [Read more…] about Kentucky Hot Brown Bake

Turkey Legs, Italian Sausage and Potatoes in the Slow Cooker

June 14, 2012 by Tiffany King 3 Comments

Have you ever made a recipe that just didn’t turn out? I’ve done it a lot of times, but one I remember well.

Jim and I were recently married and I was just learning to cook. We used to invite friends to come to dinner and I would make a new recipe. Most of our other meals during the week consisted of ramen noodles or instant potatoes. We were college students and had no money, so it was a splurge to buy ingredients for a nice meal once a week.

On this occasion, I made a dish that had chicken, Italian sausage, potatoes and tomatoes in it. The recipe called to bake it in the oven for 1 hour. Needless to say, that was not nearly a long enough cooking time for so much meat and raw potatoes. When I served it, we cut into raw chicken. Yuck!

Thankfully, the guests we had were also college students. They were easily satisfied with a bowl of cereal until the dinner had more time to cook.

I never tried making that recipe again, but I remember that when it finally cooked it did taste good. So when Frigidaire recently asked me to share a “do-over” recipe, I knew this would be the one. Except this time I made it in the slow cooker to give it a good, long cook time.

Frigidaire has a new Gallery dishwasher that features an OrbitClean Wash Arm that gets the dishes clean the first time. Raise your hand if you’ve ever had to have a do-over on a load of dishes. Frigidaire invites you to visit Facebook.com/Frigidaire to share your own “do-over” moment. It doesn’t have to be food related. One lucky visitor is going to win the ultimate do-over! And Frigidaire is also donating $1 to Save the Children for every do-over submitted. So pop over and share your do-over moment.

Back to my do-over recipe. Here’s what you’ll need to try the slow cooker version, which worked out much better than the oven method I used so many years ago. [Read more…] about Turkey Legs, Italian Sausage and Potatoes in the Slow Cooker