It’s a terrific idea to roast a couple turkey legs for a little Thanksgiving feast. It’s not necessary to worry about making a whole roasted turkey from scratch, and you can easily double or triple this recipe.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 45 mins |
| Servings: | 3 |
Ingredients
- 3 stalks celery stalks, cut in thirds
- 3 turkey legs
- 6 tablespoons butter
- salt to taste
- ½ cup water, or as needed
Instructions
- Gather all ingredients.
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- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse turkey legs and pat dry.
- Stand turkey legs upright (as if the turkey were standing). Press a knife downward into the deep tissue, creating 2 or 3 long pockets. Press a piece of celery into each opening. Pull back the skin on the legs, rub with butter, and season with a little salt. Put the skin back into place, rub with more butter, and season lightly with salt. Lay the turkey legs in a roasting pan.
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- Roast uncovered until the legs are golden brown and the internal temperature is 180 degrees F (82 degrees C) when taken with a meat thermometer, about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Add more water if needed while roasting, and baste occasionally with the juices or melted butter.
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Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 558 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 1 g |
| Cholesterol | 287 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 48 g |
| Saturated Fat | 19 g |
| Sodium | 602 mg |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 40 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
FANTASTIC! Followed the recipe. I made a butter/garlic salt/onion powder/pepper paste to rub under the skin and on top. I also placed some of that paste in the ribs of the celery. Amazing flavor!!! Added a chicken bouillon cube to the water and made a gravy.
I was cooking a 2 kg Turkey Leg for Christmas lunch so I actually cooked this for for an hour and three-quarters. It was nice to be cooked in that time. I kept it simple as I had many other flavours within the Christmas lunch. I cut the skin and simply melted the butter, basted the turkey leg and added lots of salt and pepper and it crisped up beautifully. Cheers!
not enough instrucitons. how deep to make slips, all on one side or 2 on 1 and 1 on the other? Couldn’t pull skin back, butter stuck to my fingers instead of turkey leg. Why do the celery sticks before every other step? celery keeps falling out. I finally melted the butter and gave up on buttering and salting under skin. This is a poor recipe for beginners. Hope it tastes better than making it was. make what should have been easy into a very frustrating experience.
It was delicious, but I added a little of onion and garlic powder for more flavor.
I didn’t add the celery but everything else was added.
This recipe is great. Butter is a bit expensive these days but if you want crisp skin you will need either it or oil. I used homemade turkey stock instead to keep the legs moist and basted occasionally.
This was outstanding. I never eat the drumsticks, they are too tough and dry. But this! This recipe was so good even my husband liked them and he NEVER eats the drumsticks. They turned out moist and mouth watering. I’m making them again, but unfortunately I’ll have to wait until tomorrow because it has gotten too late. I forgot they do take time to cook properly.
No changes, we enjoy dark meat since it’s juicy and flavorful. We liked this recipe because we can cook it well done without drying them out.
A family favorite! Thanks for this delicious recipe. Using this recipe with Turkey legs and thighs tonight.
Add rosemary, parsley, herbal seasoning, salt and pepper and garlic to rub over pulled back skin. baste every 30-40 min. put foil over turkey with olive oil added so it doesn’t stick.
Great, fast, easy, good flavor… Definitely a keeper.
The turkey legs tasted great, but definitely needed a lot more time in the oven – like about an hour. THe internal temperature was high enough, but the meat still wasn’t done to tenderness.
Excellent
This was so so good. I can’t believe how good it was. The seasoning made it perfect and tender. It’s now a new fave in my family.
I made this recipe, and followed the instructions exactly as written. This turkey was amazing! Something about the celery makes this sooo good and juicy, and my kids don’t even like celery. Next time I will add garlic and thyme for more flavor, but that is just an option for a different flavor, totally not necessary to enjoy this turkey.
The skin is the best part. Beware the tryptophan! Ha Ha Ha Ha!
Oh my gosh this was a great recipe for turkey legs! i used chicken broth in place of the water, half a cup to start then added more during the cooking process…perfecto! I also did not add celery, just rubbed the legs with butter, salt and pepper…roasted at 350* for 90 minutes.
I put super hot cayenne pepper and creole season
So easy! I didn’t have any celery on hand, so I skipped that and everything still tasted fantastic. An easy, delicious meal!
Made these with onions and celery. Used some sage, poultry seasoning, seasoned salt and pepper mixed with the butter to spread on the turkey leg. Very tasty. Made soup with the leftovers, and that was very tasty also.
I roasted it with turkey gravy and covers it with foil from the start. I omitted the celery. Yum yum