What to Use as a Turkey Flavor Injector

Are you new to the concept of injecting any type of meat or poultry with a marinade? If so, your kitchen might not have the most important tool you’ll need for this recipe: a good seasoning injector.

A seasoning injector looks a lot like a needle that you would see in a doctor’s office. In fact, it basically does the same job. After inserting the injector into the meat, you simply push the back of the injector to force a liquid into the meat.

After you purchase your seasoning injector, expect to spend a lot of time looking for ways to use it. Beyond our turkey injection recipes, we have other injection possibilities, too. Your injector will definitely get plenty of love.

Substitutes for the Jalapeno

For some pitmasters, the word “jalapeno” evokes fond memories of kicking back with a beer and some hot wings. For others, jalapeno spells disaster because they know their hungry taste-testers can only handle so much heat.

If you are waffling on making this flavor injector recipe for your turkey because of worries over the jalapeno, let us recommend a few ways to either heighten the heat or temper the tone:

Use fewer jalapeno peppers in your turkey injection seasoning. Halving the amount will reduce the intensity and keep your bird on the milder side.
For a hotter turkey, choose serrano peppers, which have a higher heat index. Just be careful when prepping them and always use gloves.
Try an Anaheim pepper in lieu of a jalapeno for less kick. You will still know it’s there, but it offers up a bit of a sweetness that jalapeno lacks.

As you get more comfortable making this turkey injection marinade recipe, as well as testing injectable marinade recipes for chicken, duck and other poultry, be sure to play around with available flavors. You may realize that you start to make poultry more often than before. You may even produce a grilled and smoked turkey more than once or twice a year.