Echelon Foods Original Turducken Review

Echelon Foods invited me to try their Original Turducken for Thanksgiving. A completely ready-to-roast Turducken stuffed with Italian sausage? It was too intriguing to say no!

The Product

Although, I almost did. My biggest concern was it being thawed in time for Thanksgiving. Reg and I rushed to the store on Thursday when I was assured there would be Turduckens. I could not find them anywhere. I spoke with a guy who worked there who said his boss’ boss’ boss said they would be in soon.

I was ready to give up but Reg said, “You told everyone you were going to make it! You can’t give in now.” I had a sneaky suspicion that meant Reg told everyone he knew about it, LOL. So I contacted the lovely PR rep who was equally upset the Turducken was not there and assured me there would be one tomorrow.

We went back and there it was. All $87 worth of turkey, chicken, duck and Italian sausage. Woah! Again, I almost said no but…

… We bought it! As you can see, Reg was thrilled. I still worried there was not enough time for it to thaw by Monday. Thankfully it was thawed for Thanksgiving and we were good to go.

I wanted to make a gravy from the drippings so I added rough-chopped carrots, celery and shallots. Also, smashed garlic, fresh thyme and peppercorns. I seasoned them with salt and pepper, tossed in olive oil.

Because I used the hot oven method to roast the Turducken, I would be required to baste it every half hour for four hours. I added a lot of broth to the pan because I also wanted gravy!

The Test Kitchen

Let me show you just how easy it was to make this Turducken! Don’t forget the outtakes at the end.

I literally just had to put it in a pre-heated 350F oven and baste every half hour for four hours, which are the directions for an 11-lb Turducken. That was it! It was already seasoned and ready for the oven. I could not believe how easy Echelon Foods made this seriously complicated meal.

I tried taking off the twine right away and a ton of juices came pouring out. So don’t do that! Let it rest for half an hour before touching it. It was a little dark so we were worried that it was going to be all dried up inside.

But it wasn’t! And I carved it in half quite easily. Here you can see there is a ton of Italian sausage stuffing which is inside and around a duck which is inside a chicken which is inside a turkey.

Here is our Thanksgiving dinner with homemade gravy! Were we ever stuffed! (OMG, no pun intended.)

Foodie Conclusion

Echelon Foods‘ Original Turducken is a masterpiece. They have taken one of the most difficult dishes to create and made it so easy for the home cook. There is no way that this meaty monster of a dish would fail to impress any fancy dinner, anywhere. I just cut it out of the bag, put it on a roasting tray in a roasting pan and four hours later, it was cooked to perfection.

The Problem?

The flaw? Oh I hate to say it because this was such a great experience but believe it or not, there was too much of the Italian sausage stuffing. At least for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It overwhelmed everything. The duck (which was delicious) was so completely infused with the flavour from the sausage stuffing it was spicy and took away the subtle flavour of the duck.

I personally loved every bite but it did not taste like Thanksgiving to me. It was delicious but as Reg said, the turkey did not taste like turkey. It was moist and fabulous but this oddly ended up tasting more like an Italian dish than a traditional holiday meal. Which is absolutely amazing if that is what you are looking for. We weren’t.

The Solution!

There is no doubt in my mind that Echelon Foods‘ Original Turducken is the ultimate family feast. It truly is. We got 11 pounds of meat and it was wonderful.

Next time? I would get one with chicken apple stuffing. Absolutely. I think that is a much better fit for holiday feasting and it appears to be a little less expensive too.

Foodie Verdict

The Original Turducken is amazing. Yes, it is a lot of money but think of how much expensive meat went into that product and Echelon Foods did all the work. And it was obviously a ton of work. I would have preferred a more-traditional stuffing and much less of it. There was just too much in ours and it impacted our meal so strongly. I wanted more duck, chicken and turkey flavour and what I got was a powerful punch from the Italian sausage.

It was an amazing experience I will never forget and I am very grateful to Echelon Foods for giving me the opportunity. I want to give the product a higher rating but because of the stuffing issues, I can only give it a four out of five wooden spoons.