How Much Turkey Per Person?

How much turkey do I need per person – it’s especially critical to get the answer to this as it’s Christmas Dinner for One for me this year and I don’t want to find myself short of turkey, nor do I want to be inundated with it for weeks, so I’ve been mulling over how much turkey per person so I can finalise that item on my final Christmas food buying list.

I’m doing Christmas dinner for one, but I also need to think about how, and if, I’d really use up leftovers.  I do love turkey, so want to be able to have a second Christmas dinner on Boxing Day, but how much can I really get through?

Of course it can all be frozen – but then it might linger in the freezer too long as I’m “all turkeyed out” so to speak.

To decide how much turkey to buy and cook for one person becomes difficult to nail with precision.  I’d like to get a turkey crown, which I’ll cook in the slow cooker the day before.  But is that too much?  Asda’s smallest turkey crown weighs in at 1.5Kg.  That’s a LOT of turkey – they describe it as serves 4-6.  My heart tells me to buy the small Asda turkey crown; my head tells me to stop being daft and to buy something smaller.  But how much smaller is it sensible to go?  I also want value/volume for my money – I’d rather buy double the turkey for the same price, than just buy “exactly what I need”.

Turkey for One: Portion Sizes

Taking a quick look, below are some of the turkey sizes and how many people they serve.

• A small crown, weighing about 1.5Kg.  Serves 4-6. Asda sell a small, frozen, crown for £9 (£6/Kg).
• A turkey joint, weighing about 800 grams. Serves 4, (£5.60/Kg). These come frozen and in a tin foil tray, they take 2 hours to bake from frozen. Asda sells one at £4.50.
• An individual ready-cooked turkey breast.  Bernard Matthews sell packs of turkey breast chunks, 140 grams. This serves a small one portion, I think it’s too little for such a big occasion!  £1.50 (£10.70/Kg). This is in the chiller department and can be microwaved, or re-heated in the oven; the meat’s already cooked so you’re just reheating it.

It’d be easier if I were cooking for two, as the choices would simply be between the crown or the breast joint!  Cooking for two I’d probably just go for the crown, leaving lots of turkey leftovers and enough for lunch the next day too.

Turkey Per Person.

Depending how you buy your turkey meat, how much pack weight you want to buy will vary:

• Turkey on the bone = 500-700 grams per person.
• Turkey crown = 300-400 grams per person.
• Turkey breast joint = 200-300 grams per person.
• Turkey ready cooked and chilled = 250 grams, or two packs at 140 grams.

Which Turkey for Christmas Dinner for One?

Well, I have to reach a decision, so, right this minute, based on the information above, I was tempted to go for the turkey joint, at £4.50, weighing 800 grams.  If I buy a frozen one I’d defrost it and cook it in the slow cooker – browning it in the oven to finish (or not!).  Cooking a frozen turkey joint in the oven would take 2 hours and I’m not prepared to sit and watch that!  The slow cooker will take out that pacing back and forth.

But look, a small turkey crown is “just £1.50 more” and gives nearly double the turkey!  So it might be that small turkey crown.  I’d take it out of the freezer early evening on Friday 23 December, then put it into the slow cooker on Christmas Eve, giving it all day to cook.  Then I’d cool it down and put it into the fridge.  To serve the turkey I could microwave a large chunk of turkey, then pop it into the mini oven for 15-20 minutes on Christmas Day.

However, simply buying two packs of the turkey breast chunks, a total of £3 and providing 280 grams of turkey, is still tempting….

I’m going to have to mull it over a little longer I’m afraid – I simply can’t decide.  Maybe I should do a dummy run 🙂  I wish I’d thought of that a couple of months ago.

Christmas Dinner for One on a Budget

If I were simply trying to produce a budget Christmas dinner for one, then the choice would be straight forward.  For £1.50 I’d buy the Bernard Matthews turkey chunks – first checking other shops to see if they offered something similar that was even cheaper… but the official Christmas dinner for one on a budget spreadsheet could start with this at £1.50!

Decision:

A quick update, I did finally make a decision – I decided that an 800 gram turkey breast joint gave me a good sized amount of turkey for Christmas Day, while not producing a never-ending pile of leftovers.  This is the one for me.