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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 giblets can provide concentrated and hugely beneficial nutrition to your holiday meal. Why not use them instead of tossing them this year?
In this fourth of the five “Turkey Tips” I filmed as a series for NBC News Channel 8 Today anchored by Gayle Guyardo, I show you how to very simply incorporate those giblets even if you are not the best of cooks. The flavor is amazing when added to homemade gravy drizzled over your favorite healthy stuffing recipe.
What are Giblets?
Giblets are the edible offal of fowl. Some people also include the neck too. Gram for gram, organ meat is far more nutritious than muscle meats.
- Neck – great for adding additional flavor, color, and extra minerals to the gravy. You can simmer the neck on very low heat with some grass-fed butter while the turkey is roasting and then add the juice to the gravy drippings.
Organ Meats
- 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. For more information on the benefits of gizzards, check out this excellent article by Sally Fallon Morell.
- Heart – the heart muscle contains the highest concentration of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) of any food. CoQ10 is also known as ubiquinone. Levels of this nutrient 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. Turkey heart can be simmered with the other giblets in grass-fed butter. Tip: pork heart is very mild tasting, and when ground, can be mixed in small amounts with grass-fed beef.
- Liver – liver is the world’s number one superfood. Inexplicably, it has all but disappeared from the diet of Westerners. It is chock full of vitamins A, K2, antioxidants, and trace minerals. Traditional cultures viewed it as a sacred food due to the health and fertility it bestowed on children and couples. It 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. It is the perfect appetizer for your holiday meal.
A special thanks to Sally Fallon Morell, author of Nourishing Traditions Cookbook for suggesting some of the ideas for this clip.
How to Use Turkey Giblets Video Tutorial
To view all the Holiday Turkey Tips I filmed for the NBC News Channel 8 Today show, check out the provided link.
Do you have a special way of preparing poultry giblets? Please share your ideas with all of us in the comments section.
The Healthiest Way to Thicken Gravy (VIDEO)
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.
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!
This is what my grandma always did for her cornbread dressing too!!! But she cooked the neck long enough for the meat to easily be pulled off the bone or for it to fall off on it’s own and added it with the rest. Fabulous flavor and none of us kids knew it was in there! I found out because I was always the kitchen helper and she taught me everything I know about cooking, but my sister just found out this last Christmas and was extremely repulsed by the idea she had been eating organ meat in one of her favorite holiday dishes. She ended up eating it still though 🙂
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.
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.
Love the tip Sarah, I was planning on giving the giblets to my dog but not now!
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!