
Right after all the festive feasting, we always have a lot of leftovers. This year I managed to find a rather small turkey at 5.1kg for our family Christmas gathering, but still we were left with two boxes of the leftover turkey at the end of the day. I used the turkey leg in this leftover turkey curry recipe, despite my mummy said it’s a waste of the turkey leg, I should have used the drier turkey breast instead. I thought the tenderness of the juicy turkey leg will make the perfect turkey curry and I was really happy with the end results.
Is turkey a low calorie meat?
Turkey meat is known to be nutritious, providing protein, fat, and a variety of vitamins and minerals. It is generally lower in saturated fat than beef. Fat-free turkey is also the lowest calorie meat option and may be a better choice for heart health.
How to make the perfect turkey curry recipe?
I love making my own curry paste and made it a day in advance for this recipe. You can use any store bought curry paste and it works as well.
I didn’t add any vegetables in this turkey curry recipe, though I normally would add some tofu puffs and potatoes in my curry dishes. It’s packed full of flavours, from the butter herb infused turkey meat cooked stuffed with apples, lemons and onions, and the aromatic spices used in the curry paste.
Even without using the leftover turkey, you can also use other kinds of meat such as chicken or beef.
Just fry the curry paste to release its aroma, then add the turkey meat, water, coconut milk and seasoning. The actual cooking took less than 15 minutes, which is really a relief, especially after all the hours spent cooking in the kitchen for the festives.

Watch My Leftover Turkey Curry Recipe Video
Leftover Turkey Curry Recipe
Ingredients
- 4-5 tbsp cooking oil
- 2 leftover turkey leg (can be breast meat or any other parts too) deboned and chop into chunks
- 100 ml water
- 300 ml coconut milk
- Salt season to taste
Curry paste (yields about 250g curry paste)
- 20 dry chilli
- 5 shallots peeled
- 5 garlic gloves peeled
- 1 inch galangal
- ½ tsp ground coriander
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
Instructions
Make curry paste (optional if you use store bought paste)
- Soak dry chilli in hot boiling water for about 10 minutes until soften. Save the water for later.
- Chop all curry paste ingredients into smaller pieces.
- Make the curry paste by blending all the curry paste ingredients and 2-3 tbsp of chilli water in a food processor.
Cook turkey curry
- Heat cooking oil over low-medium heat.
- Add curry paste and sauté until the paste releases its aroma. This takes about 3-4 minutes.
- Add deboned turkey leg and fry for 2-3 minutes until the turkey is well coated with the curry paste.
- Add water and let it simmer for 3-4 minutes.
- Add coconut milk and let it simmer for a minute.
- Add salt and season according to taste.
- Let it simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes.
- Serve warm with rice, vermicelli or roti.
Great recipe for leftovers. Might try it out.
Thanks for reading this!
I have some leftover turkey and vegetables in my fridge too. Now this is a really good idea.
Do try it out and share how it turns out. Thank you dear!