Does carving a turkey seem intimidating?? It is actually quite easy. In this how to carve a turkey tutorial I will show you step by step how to deconstruct your bird.
First you will need a sharp knife, a pair of tongs, a cutting board, three paper towels and a serving platter.
Fold up your paper towels and place on the cutting board. This will help stabilize the turkey and keep it from sliding around. Place your turkey on top of the paper towels. Take your knife and run it along the side of the breast bone with a sawing motion and down the side of the wishbone. Reference to picture 1. Next take your knife and cut down along side of the leg and thigh and remove the breast meat. Reference to picture 2. Repeat on the other side.
Now to cut your breast meat you will want to cut across the grain. This will make for very tender cuts of meat. Place on your serving platter.
Now to remove the legs. Grab the leg and pull it back so the joint opens up and cut through. Reference picture 1 above. Now holding your drumstick up just run your knife in a sawing motion down the drumstick to remove the meat. Reference to picture 2. Repeat for the other leg. Or if you prefer just leave it on the bone and eat it caveman style. 🙂
Now flip your bird over to cut the wings off. This is the ugly side of the bird but it is sure tasty!! Treat these much like the legs, grab the wing and pull back to expose the joint (you may need to cut through the skin to pull it back) and cut through the joint.
Now for the thighs. You are going to cut towards you and pull back to expose the joint and cut through. To take the meat off of the thigh you will need to take the bone out which should come out really easily with a knife or even your fingers. Then slice it just like the breast meat.
Now just use your hands to remove any chunks of meat remaining on the turkey.
There you have it, see I told you there would be nothing to it. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back because you will be carving that bird like a pro!
