One thing I really love is the day after a turkey is cooked in the oven is eating turkey sandwiches made out of cold turkey.
However those sandwiches are made out of thick slices, or little chunks of turkey which came from cooking an entire turkey the day before. Deli slices do not taste the same.
Are there places where I can just pick up turkey that tastes like a roasted turkey without having to cook it myself or wait for someone else to cook one? Deli slices don’t taste the same to me, for some reason, compared to a home cooked turkey that has been carved up and left in the fridge overnight. I figured if the thin slices didn’t taste the same (from the deli) that the thick slices wouldn’t either, but I admit I haven’t tried.
I think you’re SOL, canned Turkey is OK for a pot pie maybe but it won’t make a good sandwich. Try knocking on your neighbors doors. Somebody should have it.
You can get pre-cooked turkey breast. In my grocery store they are between the real meat and the hot dogs/deli meats. Google shows that Costco has such a product too. You can slice it up and make sandwiches from it.
If you have a Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop near you, you can just pick up a premade sandwich called the Bobbie which is basically Thanksgiving on bread. It includes real cooked turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing. One of the best sandwiches I’ve ever tasted.
deli sliced turkey is heavily brined and processed, similar to deli/canned ham. I don’t think you’re going to find anything like it at the store, IIRC cooked fresh turkey just doesn’t store or keep well enough.
Depends on the store. There’s a couple local chains here in Chicago I frequent that have homemade turkey breast and roast beef in the deli counter, but in a separate section from the packaged deli meats. (And one of the on weekends has roast pork, too.) It looks, tastes, and feels just like homemade roasted turkey and beef, because it is roasted in store and not heavily processed. I actually don’t buy it because I prefer the processed kind for sandwiches, and it’s about twice the price.
It is a supermarket, but a local chain (Pete’s Market and Shop & Save). Their individual stores tend to cater to the local ethnic population, so they have a lot of homemade stuff that you may not see at your Jewel/Albertsons/Kroger/Meijer type of place. That said, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if a place like Whole Foods or other store in that type of style would have it, with organic and fresh made being such a selling point these days.
I at times get a craving similar to the OP, and the pre-cooked breasts satisfies it. It’s not truly fresh, at least the ones I’ve had, but the preservatives allow it to be stored a little longer in the fridge.
I feel the same way about chicken, namely the white meat from grilled and refrigerated chicken breasts. Whenever I’m marinating and grilling chicken breasts (the boneless skinless kind), I always make a bunch of extras for the leftovers. It’s one of the most versatile leftovers around with a million uses including delicious sandwiches, and it keeps about a week or more. I haven’t seen anywhere around here where one can buy the equivalent in prepared form, though.
As I just mentioned, this is not the case. Local supermarkets have roasted turkey breast slices, roast chicken, meat loaf, etc. in the deli cases. None of it is brined or processed. It should be readily available if you live in a city. And cooked turkey in the amount produced keeps just fine. I’m pretty sure they are roasting a half breast or so at a time to reduce wastage. At the end of the day, it gets tossed out.
If you can find Boar’s Head meats in a deli (Sprouts has it) there are a variety of turkey options and to me they are all pretty close to home-roasted. Same for the chicken.
(PS: be sure to get a piece of the best ham in the known universe, Boar’s Head Sweet Slice ham.)
it’s still more heavily brined; it’s like the rotisserie chicken I can get from Kroger. the texture of the breast meat is noticeably different and the flavor is much saltier. it just isn’t the same as a turkey/chicken you roast yourself. at least not in my experience.
I’m pretty sure our grocery store sells thick sliced ‘real’ turkey and thick sliced ‘real’ roast beef. It’s kind of expensive, found across from the deli in a cooler (along with the more special packaged cold cuts, tubes of liverwurst, packets of different salami)
, and there is a deli turkey cold cut called ‘Just Plain Turkey’. It does taste like just plain turkey, I’ve bought thick 1/2 slices to use in recipes.
The grocery stores in my area usually have two “types” (for lack of a better word) of turkey breast available. One is wetter, thinner and has no grain. It’s probably what you get most often when you order sliced turkey from a deli. The other is drier (but not unpleasantly…more like less “slimy”), thicker and has a grain. It is usually more expensive too. I think that kind is what you are looking for. Look in their deli case and you’ll see it. It’s sometimes in the section with their prepared foods rather then the deli meats.
I live near a Central Market (the parent company’s name is Town & Country) that has a deli section. They have a turkey breast that’s exactly like you describe - essentially what you’d get if you cooked it at home and sliced it up the next day. The deli counter can make the slices as thick or thin as you like.
There are certainly DIY solutions. When my wife and I cook a turkey, we take it apart and portion it out before freezing the leftovers. We make sure some portions of the breast will be perfect for sandwich making and then we can easily thaw it out when we’re ready. It helps that we have a stand alone freezer to accommodate all this, though.