Cooking Turkey legs

[jackelope]

Ok. Multiple discussions over the weekend turkey trip about how to cook wild turkey legs to make them edible. Let’s hear it. What do y’all do with your turkey legs? Low and slow? Pressure cooker? Smoker?

[NRA4LIFE]

Crab pot.

[OltHunter]

#1 - is to brine them for 12 to 24 hours, no matter what method you use.  Make it very salty.

I got 2 over opening weekend.  Did an 8 hour pellet grill with some seasons and barbeque sauce.  Turned out with a similar taste to liver.  Not great.  The breasts turned out wonderful.  Store bought quality.

The other, I sous vide for 24 hours in butter, garlic, and a few other spices.  Turned out excellent.  I did fried cutlets with the breast.

My recommendation would be brine, then a slow cooker of some sort around the 24 hour mark.  Crock pot or sous vide. 

[HighGrouseHunt]

Turkey legs are great when braised low and slow. We use a crockpot and braise them (along with the wings) to make Hank Shaw’s Carnitas recipe ( https://honest-food.net/turkey-carnitas/ ), or Posole Verde (he has a recipe for that too, it’s just a bit more involved). We sort of disregard the listed “cooking time” and just put everything in the crockpot on low before we head off to work in the morning and it is done when we get home 8-10 hours later. For the Posole there are a couple more steps, but crockpotting the legs and wings all day gets them tender enough to shred for the remainder of the recipe.

If you make your own turkey stock from the carcass of the bird, both of these recipes are a great place to use it.

[TheStovePipeKid]

I will be deep frying my turkey breast, legs, thighs, and wing when I get home. I've had good success with a dressed out hen. Hopefully it will go well without the full carcass.

[Tree Killer]

Crockpot overnight with a couple cups of chicken broth.  Next morning the meat falls off the bones and you pick out the those tendons that look like zip ties.  The meat is great in soup, enchilada's, turkey pot pie, etc.

[dan11011]

Had a butcher smoke mine for the first time. Worth every penny. 

[rosscrazyelk]

Following

[MtnMuley]

Bone out and mix with 50% pork butt for breakfast or Italian  sausage. You're going to end up with roughly 2.5 lbs of turkey, so figure 5 lbs of sausage per bird. I won't even make venison breakfast sausage again after everybody prefers the wild turkey by a landslide. You can get 5# seasoning batches from Spokane Spice (Mitchlich's) if that's all you're going to do. 

[The Gobble-stopper]

All great options, also you may try what I do. I age them in the refrigerator for 7 days. Just like you would do with your big game meat or beef. Maybe not in the refrigerator for the bigger animals, but it breaks down the tissues and makes the bird, including the legs more tender.

[pickardjw]

I tried posole a few years ago. Did 4 hours on high in the crock pot instead of a longer, slower cook. Big mistake...

[jrebel]

I’ve got 4 legs and 4 thighs in the crockpot right now.  Seasoned with salt and pepper then seared all of them off in a hot pan with butter.  After that they went into the crockpot with chicken broth, bay leaves, red pepper flakes and garlic.   I deglazed the pan with a little stock and added it as well for all the flavors.   

My plan is to break it all down and use the meat for street tacos, soup and.....well whatever I can think of.   

I’ll give an update with how it turns out.  Sure does smell good. 

[jrebel]

Turned out pretty amazing.  Literally falls off the bone and tendon.  Chopped up two legs and made turkey tacos....very impressed.  Vaccine sealed the other meat and placed in the freezer for future meals.