Camp Turkey Taco Skillet
Turkey, taco seasoning, and tortillas cooked down in one pan at the truck.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 42 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 25 min
- water
- 160 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Canister stove
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Wild turkey breast | 1.5 lb | cut into bite-size chunks and pounded thin under plastic wrap |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetable oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Taco seasoning | 1 packet | or 3 tbsp of your own premix |
| Water | 2/3 cup | |
| Flour tortillas | 8 small | they survive a pack better than hard shells |
| Shredded sharp cheddar | 6 oz | cooler item |
| Roma tomato | 2 | firm ones travel |
| Yellow or red onion | 1 small | |
| Shredded cabbage or romaine heart | 2 cups | cabbage keeps days longer than lettuce |
| Avocado | 1 | optional, pack it hard and unripe |
| Taco sauce | to taste |
Method
- Dice the tomato and onion, shred the cabbage, and cut the avocado if you brought one. Do this first so the meat does not sit.
- Heat the oil in a skillet over the fire or on a grate. Add the turkey in one layer and let it brown before stirring. Wild turkey is lean and goes dry fast, so move it off high heat once the outside colors.
- Add the seasoning and 2/3 cup of water. Simmer uncovered and stir until the liquid is a thick sauce, about six minutes.
- Push the meat to one side and lay tortillas on the empty half of the pan, thirty seconds a side, until they blister. Stack them under a lid to stay soft.
- Build each tortilla with meat, cheese, then the cold stuff. Sauce last.
Wild turkey breast has almost no fat, which is why the source method browns it in oil and then simmers it in seasoned water instead of just frying it through. That short simmer is the whole recipe. It puts moisture back into meat that would otherwise cook up like sawdust, and the starch in the seasoning packet thickens the pan liquid into something that clings.
This is a car camping meal, not a pack meal. The oven step for crisping shells is gone; a skillet already hot from the meat blisters tortillas in under a minute and you keep one pan. Cabbage replaces lettuce because lettuce turns to slime on day two in a cooler, and everything cold goes on after the pan is off the heat.
Packing
Cube and season the turkey at home, then freeze it flat in a bag. It doubles as a cooler ice block for the first day and thaws by dinner. Vegetables in a hard container so nothing gets crushed; cheese and avocado on top of the cooler, not buried in melt.
Variations
- No turkey in the freezer: a can of chicken or two foil pouches of tuna work with the same seasoning and water.
- For a backpacking version, use dehydrated ground turkey and instant refried bean powder, rehydrate with boiling water, and skip the fresh produce entirely.
https://realtree.com/turkey-blog-with-steve-hickoff/wild-turkey-taco-recipe