🌶️🦃 Spice Up Your Holidays with a Crawfish-Boiled Turkey! 🦃🌶️

Every once in a while, somebody in South Louisiana looks at a perfectly good Thanksgiving turkey and says, “Let’s boil it.” Not just boil it, but drop it into a full-blown crawfish pot loaded with seasoning, lemons, onions and garlic. It sounds wild to outsiders, but folks around here know better.

Instead of drying out in the oven, a turkey cooked this way stays juicy and pulls in Cajun flavor all the way through. It is cooked outdoors using the same propane burner and big pot used for a crawfish boil. When it is done, it’s a spicy, tender turkey that is perfect for slicing, shredding, or piling onto a plate next to corn, potatoes, and sausage from the pot.

For a thawed 12 to 15 pound turkey, fill a 60 to 100 quart pot about halfway with water and bring it to a rolling boil outside. Add:

• four to five pounds of dry crawfish seasoning
• eight to 16 ounces of liquid crab boil
• halved lemons
• quartered onions
• whole heads of garlic

Let that boil for about 10 to 15 minutes to build flavor.

Lower the turkey into the pot breast-side up and return it to a strong boil. Cook roughly four to five minutes per pound, until the thigh reaches 165 degrees. Once the heat is turned off, let the turkey soak for 20 to 30 minutes. That soak is where the spice really starts to show itself.

Pull the turkey, let it cool just enough to handle, discard the softened skin, and debone the meat. Serve it up with the boiled vegetables and something simple like rice or cornbread. If feeding a mixed crowd, go lighter on the seasoning at first. Heat can be added, but not taken out.