As you ready your holiday turkey for roasting, do you throw away or feed your pet the turkey giblets that usually come tucked inside the bird?
The turkey giblets can provide concentrated nutrition to your holiday meal, so this year, use them instead of toss them!
In this fourth of the five “Turkey Tips” I filmed as a series for the NBC News Channel 8 Today television show anchored by Gayle Guyardo, I show you how to very simply incorporate those giblets into your holiday meal even if you are not the best of cooks.
Turkey giblets typically consist of four different parts of the turkey (some people don’t include the neck) :
- Neck - great for adding additional flavor, color, and extra minerals to the gravy. You can simmer the neck on very low heat with some grassfed butter while the turkey is roasting and then add the juice to the gravy drippings.
- Gizzard - loaded with Vitamin A, the gizzard can be simmered along with the neck and then chopped up finely and blended into the gravy for additional flavor and trace minerals.
- Heart - the heart muscle contains the highest concentration of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) also known as ubiquinone of any food. CoQ10 levels begin to diminish as early as your 20′s and can affect your heart and brain health significantly as this nutrient is required for cellular energy. The heart can be simmered with the other giblets in grassfed butter.
- Liver - liver is the wonderfood that has disappeared from the diet of Westerners. Chock full of vitamins A and D, antioxidants, and trace minerals, this food which was sacred to many Traditional Cultures can be blended with the heart after simmering in butter with the other giblets. Mix in some additional butter with a few pulses of the food processor, and you will have a delicious and nutrient dense pate spread for crackers that is the perfect appetizer for your holiday meal.
A special thanks goes to Sally Fallon Morell, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and author of Nourishing Traditions Cookbook for suggesting some of the ideas for this clip.
To view all the Holiday Turkey Tips I filmed for the NBC News Channel 8 Today show, click here.
Do you have a special way of preparing turkey giblets? Please share your ideas with all of us in the comments section.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
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{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
I never do, in fact growing up and raising chickens, one of my favorite part was a heart, and i do love to make a spread with liver.
My mom has always boiled them in water, mashed up everything but the neck then added the juice and giblets to the stuffing instead of broth. Her stuffing has the best flavor!!
YES! Wonderful and easy idea. Thank you for adding.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist\’s last post: Video: Don’t Toss Those Turkey Giblets!
My mother and grandmother have always done this, as well! Growing up on the farm, there was no waste. Everything had a use. The food tasted SO good, and everyone was the healthier for it!
What a great video series for your local TV viewers! Short, sweet and packed with good information. Can’t wait for the final installment.
Thanks Beth. I was thrilled to be able to link “grassfed butter” and “healthy” together in this segment
I was very excited to learn that this show is carried by a number of NBC affiliate stations around the country so I am hopeful that this series was able to reach many more than just those in Florida.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist\’s last post: Video: Don’t Toss Those Turkey Giblets!
Love the tip Sarah, I was planning on giving the giblets to my dog but not now!
My mom always uses them. She uses the neck meat in the gravy, and uses the others in her dressing. Every year…. I guess she is pretty smart lady
I put all the giblets into the food processor. That way they’re easy to sautee and sneak into the stuffing!
We’ve always put them in the stuffing too.
People would throw away the giblet parts?? Nooooo!
The kids young and older fight over them at my mom’s. Adults have no chance at them.
Don’t eat the liver, it’s where toxins that the body can’t eliminate are stored. So only toss it.
The liver eliminates toxins it doesn’t generally store them… it is always best to eat the liver. You can always tell a healthy liver as it is firm and deep red colored. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/does-the-liver-store-toxins/#axzz2CsaOIWg9
I just found this. It’s worth a read. http://healthwyze.org/index.php/component/content/article/387-quick-tip-you-should-never-eat-liver.html
This is a pretty stupid article. One paragraph says not to eat liver or vegetables because they both could possibly contain aflatoxins. The paragraph then ends saying not to forget to eat your veggies because they are good for you!
I couldn’t find any citations to the supposed studies, either.
And here’s a Dr. Oz’ article as well: http://www.sharecare.com/question/is-eating-liver-healthy Plus, if you think about, humans feed most animals incorrectly w/ grain to fatten them up, so their bodies are terribly stressed and contain toxins throughout. So, it’s very likely that the liver is not healthy enough to eat. Period. Now, if the animal is raised organic & free range, it may not be as bad. But I’m no longer going to consume it. My body has enough toxins exposed to it daily, just living in this world. Wake up & get real.
If you continue to buy and consume poorly raised, industrial ag foodstuffs, Tracy, then you are absolutely right…don’t eat the liver. But for those of us that raise our own clean, healthy animals; or those who insist on searching out and purchasing only clean food, we will benefit from the most nourishing bits of the animal. Your choice what YOU do, but your comments attempting to belittle us just demonstrates your ignorance on these very important issues. No disrespect intended towards you, or the general population which is kept mostly in the dark by big ag… Just understand that this blog is an excellent source of information when you get ready to REALLY “wake up and get real”.
well, the liver has to come from a healthy animal. my family always cooks and eat the giblets and has never had problems!
My mom and grandmother used to simmer the giblets in some water, with butter, celery, and onion. The giblets were minced and added to the stuffing along with some of the broth. The rest of the broth was added to the gravy. YUM!!!!
That’s how I do it too. It really is good!
Avoiding liver is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Kind of like avoiding all seafood because of Fukushima. There are nutrients that only liver can provide in sufficient quantity and you will be nutrient depleted if you don’t eat it. If you are concerned, then just be sure to source clean liver. Easy. Problem solved.
The sad fact is that our entire planet is a toxic soup and you need organ meats especially liver or you are going to be incredibly nutrient deficient. Our soils are too depleted and meat even if from grassfed animals is not enough anymore. You have to go for nutrient density and liver tops the list in that department.
I always put them into my crock pot for the bone broth. Great idea to process them up and put them in the stuffing! I have never trusted Dr. Oz.
Well most, if not all the nutrients found in the liver can be found from other sources. It’s not like the liver contains something special, and you can’t get it from other source, from my research, I don’t believe your comment above. I’ve never consumed liver very often to begin with, so I’m not going out of my way to consume from a turkey. I’ll keep the rest of the organs, but dispose of the liver.
Not eat grassfed and pastured liver?! I think you’re on the wrong blog.
Love the giblets! I often save my neck and toss it in when making bone broth from the turkey carcass. The other pieces I add to the gravy.
I haven’t opened the giblet bag yet but from the outside it would appear that I also have a brain this year. (It’s a locally pastured bird.) Any thoughts on that? I love me some organ meat but will admit that this one gives me pause.
That’s a lung you’ve got there, Kristine. No farmer is going to fish the brain out of a turkey head. Is it squishy and pink? Your dog will love it.
Lung is good, it has a mushroom texture and not a strong flavor. Try it!
I only looked through the bag, but it seemed more white than pink. I will know more tomorrow when I dive in. My hubby is repulsed by all organ meats, so if this is either a lung or a brain, he is really going to lose it!
Everything in here are all great. Thank you so much for sharing this video. Turkey giblets are useful and can be made into delicious recipe.
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My Granny simmers them with onion, celery and water and then it all goes into the stuffing. Everyone eats it.
I enjoy crunching down the neck. The bones are soft and provide an excellent source of the calcium compound calcium phosphate. The only other good source is this type of calcium is bone broth, thanks to even organic foods being grown on depleted soils. Eating bones in part makes up for having calcium deficient foods we are all subject to, the few exceptions aside.
Plus the neck contains marrow. Traditional Chinese medicine considers marrow as a longevity food.
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Thank you Sarah… My mom did the same thing as others have mentioned above… Simmered and then used in the stuffing and gravy. I wish I had paid more attention back then to how she actually did it.
At my house the liver gets roasted in the pan with the turkey (and all the drippings). It obviously cooks faster than the turkey, so it becomes a treat for whoever is in the kitchen when the pan comes out for basting. I usually have to fight my dad for it!
Best & VERY NUTRITIOUS! Thank you # HHE. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. You will be mentioned in my ‘thank you ‘s ‘ today. God bless …..
I’ve enjoyed your Thanksgiving videos. That is awesome you are doing videos for the local news! I am cooking my own thanksgiving this year, for the first time ever and I’m glad that I now have some ideas for what to do with the giblets. It is sad that so many people are confused (though they don’t know it) about what is good for them. If our planet weren’t so toxic and polluted then I suppose people wouldn’t be as worried.
But I bought a free-range, organic bird and am going to enjoy all the contents!
@Tracey if you’re not going to eat the liver with your turkey, can I have it? LOL
I’ll fight you for it! Lol
I meant to you healthy home economist!!!!! Love my liver!
I always used all the giblets and neck from inside the turkey with carrots, celery, onion, salt, pepper and water in the pressure cooker for 30 min. I use this stock to make the stuffing and gravy. Everybody always loves it! (I eat the neck, liver and etc. when it cools from taking it out of the stock. YUM!) Learned this from my Mom.
I have turkey that I am making now to put up in the freezer for future use. I don’t plan to make gravy. Can I put all the giblets and neck in when I make my broth?
Yes.
Thanks!
Can broth/stock be canned in a pressure canner. My freezer is already full and we still have 18 more chickens to butcher.
I asked this on another post also. Hoping to get an answer before tomorrow:)