Smoked Turkey

Ask Our Dietician

I’ve heard that smoked turkey carries plenty of sodium. I am alleged to be looking my sodium consumption. I smoke several turkeys every yr, using mesquite chips. If I don’t upload any extra salt, how a whole lot sodium will the beef and broth I make from the carcass have? —L.S., Flora Vista, New MexicoIt is real that purchased smoked turkey, including deli lunch meat, is high in sodium…as are the smoked turkeys located within the fresh meat case at grocery shops, which comprise six hundred-1,2 hundred mg sodium according to 4-ounce serving. The sodium comes from salt and different excessive-sodium ingredients that are used to taste and maintain the chicken.
Home-smoked turkey, but, is a one of a kind story. The domestic-smoking manner does now not add any sodium. When you smoke a turkey at home, in case you begin by using shopping for a turkey that has now not been prebasted and in case you don’t upload a marinade, a four-ounce component will contain less than one hundred mg of sodium. If you use a prebasted turkey, the equal four-ounce element will contain approximately 450 mg sodium.
Some outdoor cooks soak their turkeys in salt brine previous to grilling or smoking. Not best does this add remarkable taste but it enables to tenderize the beef.
To calculate the dietary data for that recipe, we measured how plenty brine solution the turkey had absorbed…and concluded that the sodium content material became 247 mg according to 4-ounce component. Obviously, if that quantity is just too high for you, you will need to pass brining the bird.
The nutritional content of the broth which you put together from your smoked turkey carcass depends at the type of turkey used and the extent of broth.
If you had been the usage of the carcass of a turkey that become not prebasted, for example, the sodium content material might be negligible—possibly much less than 50 mg per cup. With a prebasted chicken, the sodium level would be better.