Smokey. Savory. Sweet. Spicy. Move over cheese and crackers. There’s a new app in town! YOU are the first ones to learn about it. Consider this a TGD Black Friday special as a way for us to say, “Thank you for being our readers”!

Introducing, Turkey Shots:

Inspired by pig shots, these shot glass-sized holders are made out of bacon and turkey sausage, filled with apple stuffing, and topped with a sweet and spicy cranberry sauce.

Smoked turkey shots are Thanksgiving in a bite. 

Football and appetizers are a huge part of my Thanksgiving tradition. So this year, I’m bringing these. The best part of Thanksgiving will no longer be watching the Lions lose.

Let’s get cooking!

Ingredients & Instructions

Turns out that turkey shots aren’t complicated to make. The assembly takes a little time, but they can easily be prepared ahead of when you’re going to cook them!

Since we’re debuting them in this newsletter, I don’t have a video yet! That will be coming in the next few days. If you subscribe to our channel (HINT, HINT), you’ll get to watch it right away!

Here is the recipe that I followed (makes around 20 pieces).

Ingredients

1. One turkey kielbasa 

2. One pound of medium- or thick-cut bacon

3. Toothpicks

4. One box of stove-top stuffing (and butter and water per the directions)

5. One large apple, diced

6. One can of jellied cranberry sauce

7. ¼ cup of water

8. 1½ tablespoons of brown sugar

9. ½ teaspoon of cinnamon

10. cayenne pepper (to your preferred spice)

Click here to print the full recipe: Smoked Turkey Shots.

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Slice the kielbasa into ½ - ¾ inch-thick coins. Doesn’t have to be exact, just big enough to stick a toothpick through. These will serve as the base of our Turkey shots.

2. Slice the bacon in half. Create the shot cups. Take one piece of the sliced Turkey kielbasa and one of the half-slices of bacon. Wrap the bacon around the kielbasa, overlapping the end slightly. Stick a toothpick through the bacon and kielbasa coin to hold it together. Set them aside while preparing the stuffing.

3. Prepare the stove-top stuffing according to the directions on the box. I kept it simple and used a boxed stove-top stuffing mix. I have too many kids to make it from scratch. But if you’d prefer a from-scratch stuffing, go right ahead.

4. Mix your diced apple and prepared stuffing together. Spoon the combined mixture into the shot cups. Fill the cups all the way up! Unlike pig shots, these won’t expand and overflow. Once all the shots are filled, lightly season them with your favorite BBQ rub. I used Meat Church’s Honey Hog.

5. Preheat your grill to 250*. Cook the turkey shots for about 45 minutes. Highly recommend using a wire rack. This makes moving them on and off the grill much easier.

6. Make the sweet and spicy cranberry sauce. Besides politics and religion, cranberries are the most divisive part of Thanksgiving. If you hate them, skip this step. In a pot, add 1 can cranberry sauce, ¼ cup water, 1 ½ tablespoon brown sugar, ½ tsp cinnamon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Whisk it together over medium heat. I found that upgrading from plain cranberries to this sweet and spicy mixture really improved the Turkey shots.

7. Spoon a dollop of cranberry sauce onto each turkey shot. Cook until bacon is desired crispness. For me, this was about another hour (1hr 45min total).

8. Let cool and ENJOY!

Sweet ‘n Spicy Turkey (Kind-of Smash) Burger

Turkey shots put me into a Thanksgiving mood a few weeks ago. Which led to another creation - a sweet ‘n spicy turkey burger.

After you make the turkey shots (because you WILL), you should have some leftover cranberry sauce mixture. Use that and caramelized onions for an absolutely delicious burger topping.

Check it out. Just a heads up… ground turkey doesn’t smash like beef does.

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