Make this delicious Moroccan style stew recipe with turkey thigh meat. This turkey thigh tagine recipe uses cubed turkey stewing meat with lots of vegetables and tomatoes.
Around 20 years ago, whilst browsing online and eating al-desko I printed a recipe from The Guardian website. I cannot remember who wrote the recipe. For many years the tomato splashed sheet of A4 paper floated around my bookshelf, normally stashed in the front cover of a particular cookbook. I kept thinking how lost I’d be without this A4 sheet of paper. Having followed the loose direction of that recipe for so many years, eventually stopped referring to the printed version. Behold therefore, how I now serve this tagine recipe.
How can I save time making tagine?
This version of turkey thigh tagine has got whole butternut squash chopped into chunks. If you find chopping up butternut squash tricky, you could stash a bag of frozen diced butternut squash in your freezer. I keep a bag of Aldi chopped butternut squash in the freezer. The diced squash pieces are smaller than I tend to cut up by hand so it cooks quickly. It’s not exactly the same texture, I enjoy the large pieces of squash to sink your teeth into. But for times when you want to save time chopping, or haven’t any butternut available, frozen squash pieces are a good shortcut. Ditto frozen sliced onion.
Do you need a traditional ceramic tagine dish to make tagine?
Have you ever seen a ceramic tagine pot that has a conical chimney shaped top? The tagine stew sits underneath the conical lid in a deep saucer-like base. The idea behind this design is that steam, formed whilst the tagine cooks, will turn into condensation that slides back into the food. Thus all the moisture and flavour is kept in. Whilst the traditional ceramic tagine dishes are not especially expensive, you can absolutely use any casserole dish with a lid.
Traditional tagine dishes can be very attractive, with patterns, giving an authentic look to a North African style meal. My own choice would be a lovely red tagine pot (affiliate link) that matches my oval Le Creuset dish. However whether you choose to use a ceramic tagine dish depends on whether you have space to store or display one.
What should you serve with turkey thigh tagine?
Traditionally, tagine stews are served with couscous. On Maison Cupcake I have published tomato couscous and garlic mushroom couscous recipes. Couscous is a semolina carbohydrate served with tagine in the same manner as rice is often served with a curry. If you had potatoes in a tagine stew, you might not bother with couscous. If you don’t have any couscous, you could still serve tagine with rice or flatbreads to mop up the sauce.
Can this turkey thigh tagine be adapted to be vegetarian?
Cooking this recipe is fairly forgiving if you switch in and out various ingredients. I call it one of my “stone soup” recipes. Apart from the onions and tomatoes, you can experiment with swapping meats or replacing with vegetarian options such as quorn chunks or pulses.
A particular favourite of mine is chickpeas. I have even done a thinned down version as spicy chickpea soup. That said, I feel it’s the combination of cinnamon, dried fruit and mint that make me feel I’m eating something close to the original format.
May this dish cheer up your rainy July. It’s my birthday this week and the weather sucks!
Can you freeze turkey tagine?
Absolutely! This dish lends itself perfectly to being made in bulk and frozen in portions. There is a toggle setting on the recipe card below to increase the quantities of turkey thigh tagine being made. Your prep time assembling the vegetables will be longer but the cooking and simmering time are the same.
Can you use up turkey leftovers after Christmas?
You can use up leftover turkey meat from your leftover Christmas roast in this tagine recipe. It would be a good way to use brown turkey meat. Personally, I like the texture of pre-cut diced turkey meat, as I tend to avoid eating red meat very often and it’s a good substitute for cubed lamb or casserole stewing steak. Most likely, slices of leftover turkey will not be in large cubes.
Be mindful that cooked turkey slices may break up easily in a stew. But there’s no reason you can’t use leftover turkey in this tagine recipe. Simply ignore the stage adding raw turkey meat below, and add the cooked turkey halfway through the simmering stage.
Turkey Thigh Tagine
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large red onion finely sliced
- 3 cloves garlic finely sliced
- 500 g turkey thigh meat, chopped into cubes
- 0.5 chilli red, finely chopped
- 300 ml vegetable stock
- 400 g tomatoes chopped, tinned
- 1 tsp ras-al hanout (or mild curry powder)
- 0.5 tsp cinnamon ground
- 300 g butternut squash diced
- 1 courgette medium sized, chopped into chunky dice
- 1 tsp thyme chopped or dried
- 12 dried apricots cut in half
- 0.5 tbsp mint fresh, chopped, or a heaped teaspoon of jarred mint
- 1 tbsp coriander fresh, finely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to gas 6 / 200c.
- In an oven proof casserole dish on a medium heat, heat the olive oil and fry the red onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes.
- Once the onions and garlic are starting to soften add the turkey thigh and stir around to sear the sides of meat pieces.
- Next add the chilli and ras al-hanout spices and continue to cook on a low heat for a few minutes more.
- Next add the vegetable stock, tomatoes, butternut squash, courgette, thyme, mint and dried apricots stirring occasionally.
- Bring it up to a simmer then give the casserole a final stir before putting the casserole in the oven.
- Cook for 25-30 minutes in the middle of the oven until the vegetable cubes are cooked.
- Serve with cous cous, rice or flat breads. Scatter coriander (or basil) over to serve.
What can I use instead of turkey thigh?
If you don’t have any turkey thigh, an excellent substitute would be other leftover cooked meats from the Sunday roast. Take inspiration from my leftover lamb curry with mushrooms. You could easily replace the turkey in this recipe with cooked roast lamb meat. On a previous occasion I blogged a variant, Meatball Tagine using Swedish meatballs.
Wow yes. This is delicious.