Turducken Roast Review

Happy Thanksgiving! We had 10 family members over for Canadian Thanksgiving dinner this year. Last year we roasted a turducken and we liked it so much we were thrilled when we were asked to try Echelon's new premium turducken roast with Italian sausage stuffing. De-boned duck and chicken breasts are layered with italian sausage stuffing into a whole turkey. It is formed into a large sized roast as the wings and legs are removed. It is wrapped in a twine net to ensure it stays together.

This year, we decided to smoke the turducken. We've smoked a traditional turkey before and loved the smoky flavour it imparts so I was hoping smoking the turducken would add an extra level of flavour.

Our turducken roast was so simple to prepare. We just had to defrost it. Our roast was about six pounds in weight so we had to let it defrost in the fridge for three days. Thanksgiving morning my husband  got the smoker ready and then all I did was open the package and slipped the turducken onto a roasting rack and placed it in the smoker. Five hours later we took it out and let it sit for 45 minutes. No basting required. Easy Peasy. The smoker imparts an amazing colour to the turducken skin.

Right out of the package!

Into the smoker it goes!

The best part of smoking the turducken is that it frees up my oven for other dishes! I was able to bake fresh buns, bake a spaghetti squash dish, and bake up an amazing puff pastry brie appetizer. It also makes those last few minutes of getting every on table much easier. The benefit of the roast version of turducken is the ease of slicing it. There are no bones, no legs, no wings, and it's already filled with stuffing. A sharp knife and a fork is all you need. The turducken slices definitely must be cut thicker than regular turkey slices or it doesn't stay together. And since it looks so great to have a slice that includes turkey, duck, chicken and stuffing you want it to stay together. It easily fed 6 adults and 4 kids. There was even a few slices left over for lunch!

Yup, overcooked but look at the beautiful colour of that skin!!

Getting back to the smoker, we all agreed that the smoking added lots of flavour to the skin and a little to the turkey layer but it didn't seem to penetrate further than that. Given the thickness and solid nature of the turducken this really isn't too surprising. Also, we learned that the turducken is pretty forgiving in terms of dryness. We overcooked the turducken - we should have taken it out when it 165 degrees F. By the time we finished our wine and remembered to check on the bird(s) the internal temperature had reached 200 degrees F!! Yikes! I was worried everything was as dry as the dessert. Thankfully, our turducken was  quite moist. There was a couple bites of my turkey layer that were on the dry side but every other layer was perfectly moist! Let's face it over cooking it wasn't the turducken's fault, it was ours. The turducken layers though kept it from drying everything out! Yeah turducken!

Three birds and stuffing all in one slice!

I wholeheartedly recommend a turducken from Echelon Foods! Guests love being able to boast about eating a turducken, it is flavourful and soooo easy to prepare either in the oven or in a smoker. If you haven't tried one yet go for it! You'll love it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A turducken was provided to me for review but opinions, as always, are my own.