Turkey ham – A delicious pork ham alternative
- Type
- Ham
- Level
- Easy
- Rating
- Rate this recipe
In this post I show you how you can make a cooked turkey ham yourself. With moderate effort, you will achieve a super tasty result.
Cooked turkey ham goes perfectly with a freshly baked loaf of bread and is a great change from the classic cooked pork ham.
It takes 30 minutes to actively prepare. You should allow about 3 days for curing. Then the ham is cooked and must rest for 1 day.
You want to know more about ham? No problem, I have written down all my knowledge in my ham book. Interested? Explore my ham book.
Here you can find the complete turkey ham recipe as a video or to read through.
Have fun and good luck!
Table of Contents
Turkey ham – What do you need to make it?
Ingredients per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| turkey ham | ||
| turkey meat | 1,000 g | |
Spices per 1 kg
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| curing mixture | |
| salt | 92 g |
| black pepper | 10 g |
| Cure #1 | 8 g |
| juniper berries | 5 g |
| sugar | 3 g |
| garlic granules | 2 g |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| caraway | 2 g |
| coriander | 1.5 g |
| water | 1 liter |
You need about 20-30% of the meat weight as brine. So if your ham is 1.5 kg -> you need a maximum of 500ml brine. You can either boil 1 liter and then use only as much as you need or scale down the recipe.
The equipment to make turkey ham
Syringe
In order to inject the brine into the meat (the process ensures that the meat stays juicy), you will need a roasting syringe. If you don’t have one yet, you can buy one here inexpensively*.
Thermometer & cooking pot / Sous Vide cooker
There are several ways to cook your meat.
The easiest way is to use a sous vide cooker. With it you can gently cook the meat at a constant temperature. This reduces the risk of the meat becoming too hot and thus too dry.
If you don’t have a sous vide cooker and want to cook the ham in a pot, you will need a ham mold. I can recommend the following set* (which also has a thermometer included).
(Optional) Ham press / ham fairy
Personally, I make my ham in a bag and don’t care much about it being nice and round. So since I cook it sous vide, this part of the kit is optional.
Make turkey ham – Step-By-Step Instructions
Put all the spices in a mortar and grind them.
Add the salt and cure to the spices and mix them well.
Put the water and all the spices in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil and let it sit for 30 minutes. Stir the brine well several times.
Filter the brine through a sieve and let it cool down.
Inject the brine into the ham with a syringe. You can stop as soon as you notice that the brine is running out more and more.
Put the ham together with the leftover brine into a resealable bag.
Squeeze as much air as possible out of the bag. Try not to squeeze the ham too much (otherwise the brine will leak out again). Close the bag once the air is out.
The ham must now be cured for about 3 days in the refrigerator. Important: Turn the ham once every day so that the brine can soak in from all sides and is well distributed.
After 3 days it is time to cook your turkey ham. Use the method that suits you best.
Sous Vide method: With a sous vide cooker your ham will take about 3 hours at 70 °C (158 °F). Your goal is to reach a core temperature of 67 to 70 °C (152.6 – 158 °F) maximum. Otherwise, the ham will become dry.
As an alternative to the sous vide cooker, you can use a pot with a ham press. To do this, transfer the ham from the bag into the device and press. Then place the ham press in a pot and bring to a boil. Then reduce the temperature to 80 °C (176 °F) and cook for about 2 hours.
Again your goal is also to achieve a core temperature of 67 to a maximum of 70 °C (152.6 – 158 °F).
Important: Measure the core and water temperature regularly. Nothing is more annoying than investing all the effort and not being able to enjoy a good product afterwards.
Once the ham is cooked and cooled down a bit, you can drain the liquid and put the ham in the fridge overnight.
The next day you can remove the leaked protein from the meat.
Your cooked turkey ham is ready 😄. Enjoy it.
Frequently asked questions
What is turkey ham?
What is turkey ham?
Turkey ham is a cooked ham made from turkey meat. It is cured in a brine and then cooked gently, exactly the way a cooked pork ham is, and it comes out as a lean, sliceable cold cut for bread. The work is the same work: brine, inject, cure for three days in the fridge, cook, rest overnight.
What you notice in the eating is that it is leaner than the pork version. That is also why the cooking temperature matters more here than almost anywhere else in this recipe: turkey has little fat to forgive you with, so going past the core temperature in step 9 dries it out and there is no getting it back.
Is turkey ham pork?
Is turkey ham pork?
No. Ham is a method rather than an animal: cure a whole muscle and cook or dry it, and what you have is a ham. This one is turkey and nothing else, which is the reason most people go looking for it in the first place.
Bought turkey ham in a shop is worth reading the label on, because the recipe behind the name is the manufacturer’s rather than yours. Making it yourself is the version where you know what went in, and on this page that is one kilo of turkey meat, the brine and nothing further.
What is the shelf life of turkey ham?
What is the shelf life of turkey ham?
Your turkey cooked ham will keep covered in the refrigerator for about a week. The alternative is to vacuum pack the turkey cooked ham in portions. When vacuumed, it should keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks. You can also freeze it. This increases the shelf life many times over.
