This is a turkey that has been filled with a duck, a chicken, and dressing. For this dish, you’ll need kitchen twine and toothpicks.
Prep Time: | 1 hr |
Cook Time: | 4 hrs |
Total Time: | 5 hrs |
Servings: | 24 |
Yield: | 24 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 (3 pound) whole chicken, boned
- salt and pepper to taste
- Creole seasoning to taste
- 1 (4 pound) duck, boned
- 1 (16 pound) turkey, boned
- 3 cups prepared sausage and oyster dressing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lay the boned chicken skin-side down on a platter and season liberally with salt, pepper and Creole seasoning. Lay the boned duck skin-side down on top of the chicken and season liberally with salt, pepper and Creole seasoning. Cover and refrigerate.
- Lay the boned turkey skin-side down on a flat surface. Cover with a layer of cold Sausage and Oyster Dressing and push the dressing into the leg and wing cavities so they will look as if they still have bones in them.
- Lay the duck on top of the turkey skin-side down and cover it with a layer of cold dressing. Lay the chicken on top of the duck skin-side down and cover it with a layer of cold dressing.
- With the help of an assistant, bring the edges of the turkey skin up and fasten them together with toothpicks. Use the kitchen string to lace around the toothpicks to help hold the stuffed turkey together. Carefully place the turducken, breast up in a large roasting pan.
- Roast covered for 4 hours or until the turducken is golden brown. Continue to roast uncovered for 1 hour or until a meat thermometer inserted through the thigh registers 180 degrees F. and a thermometer inserted through the stuffing registers 165 degrees F. Check the turducken every few hours to baste and remove excess liquid. There will be enough pan juices for a gallon of gravy. Carve and serve.
- Learn more about how to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving in our How to Cook a Turkey article!
Nutrition Facts
Calories | 836 kcal |
Carbohydrate | 5 g |
Cholesterol | 262 mg |
Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
Protein | 79 g |
Saturated Fat | 16 g |
Sodium | 360 mg |
Sugars | 1 g |
Fat | 53 g |
Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Been making this for 7 years now. #23 Turkey #5 chicken #5 chicken……yes ditch the duck put two chickens instead, just do it! I debone everything night before and marinate turkey and chicken in their own bags. Oyster stuffing in between each layer is a necessity. No other stuffing tastes better. Place in roasting pan then cover Turkey with parchment paper and then foil on top retains moisture even better. 4hrs at 350, covered then an hour uncovered. Baste frequently. Use a roasting pan! Good luck!
Great recipe, definitely tasty, but a bit time consuming. Get a heat and serve Turducken from Cajun Grocer. https://www.cajungrocer.com/turducken
Great recipe! Personally, I like to debone the turkey leg (as shown by Jacques Pépin) and stuff that hollow as well. In fact, you could likely stuff the legs of all three birds. I used a chestnut, mushroom and bacon stuffing, exclusively but I’d like to use an uncooked sausage stuffing for the outer stuffing.
Turducken was on my “bucket list” and this year I decided to just “do it!”. Used a 3lb Chicken, 4lb Duck and a 13lb Turkey. De-boning the “birds” was relatively easy but time consuming. For me anyway the time was well worth the effort! The flavor and moistness of the three fowls was amazing! I actually put the birds each in their own brine a day before the entire Turducken endeavor and think it may have contributed to the flavor and to the de-boning process. Overall… 6 drumsticks up….. errr…. 2 thumbs up!!!
This dish was fantastic the turkey wasn’t dry at all and the duck was very moist. I now make this every year for thanksgiving.
Made this recipe and it was a huge hit. Served 12 people and still had half of the turducken left. I modified the recipe a little bit based on Pookiethebear’s suggenstions. I did not skin the duck which is one thing I would change the next time around. Stuffing between the Turkey and the duck was a Cornbread and Andouille Stuffing. Then I used the potato stuffing suggested by Pookiethebear followed by the wild rice stuffing. Cornbread and Andouille stuffing was taken from holacuisine. I used a jiffy cornbread with cream style corn recipe. The stuffing was all cooked and hot just before the birds were stuffed. Done to prevent bacteria spread. Bird was placed breast down in a roasting pan with a rack and was ready in a little over 5 hours.
I skipped the sausage and oyster part of this recipe, but followed it otherwise. Sort of a tight fit to get the chicken and duck in the turkey. I had to use lots of kitchen twine and sew it up as I packed the meat in. Turned out really well though. I cooked mine in an oil-less fryer for about 3.5-4 hours. Deboning was a pain (easy, but took a while), but it went well. I paired this with the “Easy Turkey Gravy” recipe from allrecipes, and it was perfect. I used McCormick cajun seasoning and sprinkled it between all the layers. I then rubbed the outside of the turkey in olive oil and cajun seasoning before frying it.
It was a lot of work, but wow was it good! We had 12 people to dinner for Christmas and was a hit! I was surprised that the duck made such a great impact on the rest of the meats. Will make it again, when I have a lot of time to pull it off. Next time I may not go through all the trouble to make it look like a Turkey. I may just roll it all into a loaf shape.
great flavor. college favorite.
I made a practice round of this a couple weeks ago and its amazing! My sister in law always makes it and we are having it for Thanksgiving!!!
I lived in england for five years and this was more popular there (maybe due to oven space when feeding a large group). Interesting flavors, don’t know if I would make again.
The Turducken was tremendous, and less work than we anticipated. The butcher boned the birds, which, unless you’re Jacque Pepin, is the only way to go. It’s your typical thanksgiving turkey, only thrice as nice! Actually, nicer still b/c with the birds all boned, the potentially destructive art of carving is removed: you slice straight through the layers of poultry and stuffing. It’s like rouladen or a yule log. The ONLY downside: the price. We got ours at WholeFoods, and the pricetag really put the po’ in poultry three ways. Leftovers for days, though. I would NOT drink red burgundy or Oregon Pinot Noir with this again. It was better with a bolder wine: Exceptional with a Spanish Ribera del Duero.
I tried this for the first time and it was great. I wouldnt suggest using as much oyster as that stuffing recipes calls for becasue it wiill throw the flavor of the turducken off. Instead I used a cajun dressing recipe and added sausage to that and it made the recipe a 5 star.
Duck can be dicey. It works in this recipe though. In my area, several grocery stores carry these pre-stuffed and ready to roast, which is worth it.
5 Stars for the fortitude to fool around with this much work! I am from LA, (that’s our toungue in cheek shorthand for Lower Alabama) not far from cajun country. Yes, it’s a real recipe and in the past few years they have been starting to sell them commercially in the grocery stores. They are already deboned, stuffed and trussed together,frozen and ready to cook. High interest in them has been slow coming, I tossed around the idea of making one for this Thanksgiving and, whoa buddy, they are $50 at Walmart! No doubt though buying the 3 birds, dressing ingredients, and then putting it all together is probably worth every penny. I just had to read this recipe to see what kind of a project it would be to actually make your own. No, thanks. I can’t imagine deboning the 3 birds and making one dressing, let alone 3! But maybe someday I will feel rich enough to spring for a store bought one and try it. Plain old Tom Turkey and all the trimmings again this year, much cheaper, much less work! Still gonna be a great Turkey Day!
This dish was too fussy to make, and ended up coming out rather dry. How do you fit everything in there anyways? In the end I had to make each bird seperately, and ended up using different types of stuffing for each. Very good seperately, not so much together.
I’m from the south and have had this MANY times, it’s awesome. It’s hard work, but WELL worth it. you can also make this ahead and freeze it. I’ve doubled the stuffing recipe and stuffed two turduckens (you can also put a cornish hen in the chicken if you’re feelin’ feisty.) Roast one and put one in the freezer.
This is a great recipe for a crowd. However, more detail would help, as well as Photos(?).
This is WONDERFUL! I am from Louisiana, and have had these before, but never actually made one myself. It does make it easier to buy the turkey, chicken and duck already deboned. Then you can make this your own recipe by using your favorite stuffing and spices, though it is hard to beat the original cajun spices. Laissez les bons temps rouler!
we made this recipe at christmas at the request of our teenage sons. it was a huge hit! i left the birds just barely frozen when i started, it was easier to debone them. i only removed the main cavity bones from all the birds and left the legs and wing bones in place, it was so much easier and turned out fine. make sure you have an extra set of hands after stuffing the birds to pull them all together and put them in the roasting pan. our teenagers have already asked to have this one made again.
I tried this recipe for the first time on Thankgiving. It was a big hit. It is very tasty. The seasoning from the stuffing seeps into the meat for a great taste. I used three different stuffings for a different taste. This recipe is a must try.