Do you remember the Holiday Recipe from when you were little? The Stuffed Turkey Roast with Spinach is my Christmas Recipe from the heart, the one that Grandma Licia would often prepare and that the whole family loved! That second course you look forward to after the first because you know you’ll eat several slices without ever feeling full! That dish that tastes like home, traditions, hours spent in the kitchen by the women of the house chatting about children, grandchildren, and other recipes to prepare in the coming days.
Today I present all this to you thanks to my family’s Baked Turkey Roll with Speck and Spinach! I hope you like it and that it helps you create your Christmas Menu or the Holiday Celebrations that are approaching!
We will prepare together the oven-baked turkey roast as my grandma and then my mom did, with that beautiful spiral of spinach in the center. I’m not a master with kitchen twine but I tried to show you how to tie the roast easily and quickly. In the video recipe for stuffed turkey roast you can also see this step.
Of course, it’s mandatory to serve the stuffed roast with rosemary roasted potatoes, all grandmas have their own recipe and in this case, mine is Grandma Licia’s! Extraordinarily good, easy, with that nice crust on the outside and soft inside. I’ll leave you her recipe: rosemary roasted potatoes.
This roast with spinach and speck stuffing will complete the Christmas Menu that I will propose this year for all of you, my dear friends and followers. I hope to present it to you already during next week. In the meantime, if you missed it, the Collection of 30 Easy and Quick Christmas Appetizers is out! A complete collection with simple appetizers, from those without cooking to the more elaborate ones like the great savory leavened products. Economical appetizers, with ingredients that we can easily find at the supermarket and that don’t cost an arm and a leg!
Here below I leave you other recipes with turkey that I’ve prepared over the years, every link will take you directly to the recipe you chose to read. I remind you that I await you every morning in the group and on the Facebook fan page of Le Ricette di Bea with the Recipe of the Day, an unmissable appointment of the day to wish you good morning!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very economical
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 6People
- Cooking methods: Oven, Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Fall, Winter, Christmas
- Energy 209.20 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 4.19 (g) of which sugars 1.14 (g)
- Proteins 24.62 (g)
- Fat 10.56 (g) of which saturated 3.33 (g)of which unsaturated 3.85 (g)
- Fibers 1.65 (g)
- Sodium 650.85 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 160 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for a Stuffed Turkey Roast with Spinach
- 12.35 oz turkey breast (artfully cut and beaten by the butcher for the roll)
- 12.35 oz spinach (frozen in my case)
- 5.29 oz speck (cut into fairly thin slices)
- 1.41 oz cheese (grated Grana Padano)
- 1 carrot (medium-large)
- 1 stalk celery
- Half onion
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup white wine
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch pepper
Small and big premise: when you decide to prepare this stuffed turkey roast, know that the spinach must be ready, drained and cold. Think and especially keep this step in mind which is fundamental so the roast doesn’t float in too much water, making it mushy and undercooked. In my case, I boiled the spinach the night before filming the video recipe you can find above, so they were cold, well-drained, even though I squeezed them even more by hand over the sink. They need to be dry, almost shredded, which will make the filling nice and compact.
Tools to Prepare the Oven-Baked Stuffed Turkey Roast
- 1 Pot
- 1 Colander
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Oven
- 1 Kitchen Twine
- 1 Knife
- 1 Baking Dish
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Peeler
Steps for the Recipe of Oven-Baked Stuffed Turkey Roast with Spinach and Speck
As anticipated, let’s start with the spinach which are the real stars of this recipe. I chose whole leaf frozen spinach because they are more convenient and easy to prepare. I don’t need to clean them or anything, just bring some slightly salted water in a pot to a boil and wait for the minutes to pass. Cooking time 10 minutes as indicated on the package. Then we will drain them well, squeezing them when they are still hot using the back of a spoon. Then let them drain overnight in the fridge if you prepared them the night before as I did. Otherwise, if you don’t have this time available, you can just boil them in the morning and then let them drain all day until it’s time to prepare the turkey roll.
Turn on the oven to a static mode at 180 to 190 degrees Celsius (350 to 375°F). While the oven is reaching the right temperature, we proceed with the recipe. Place on the work surface all the ingredients we will use for this recipe.
Take the turkey breast and lay it out nicely on the work surface. If you asked the butcher to prepare the meat for the roll it will be perfect and you won’t even have to beat it. Place the slices of speck on top of the meat as if to create a bed where we will then place the spinach. Nicely squeezed and shredded. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Roll the meat gently.
Now let’s move on to the kitchen twine. Place the thread vertically under the meat roll leaving a piece of twine as the final tail. Now from the opposite end, the one with the skein of twine, we will start creating circles using the back of the hand, pass it under the meat and gently pull the thread, you will see that it will tighten around the meat, like a noose. You can see this step clearly in the video recipe located under the first photo. Tie the whole roll and make a final knot using the extra twine we left initially as a tail.
Now let’s move to the vegetables, leaving the stuffed turkey roll on the cutting board or on a plate. Take the carrot and use a peeler to remove the skin. Then cut it into slices with the knife. Also cut the celery stalk. Pour a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil into the baking dish you’ve chosen to use for oven cooking.
Place the turkey roll in the center of the baking dish, arrange the sliced carrots and pieces of celery around it, drizzle the surface of the meat with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake. Place the baking dish in the middle rack of the oven. Set the first timer for 30 minutes. After this time, gently turn the meat roll, drizzle everything with a cup of white wine. Return the baking dish to the oven and set a second timer for another 30 minutes. During this time, if you wish, you can work on preparing the rosemary roasted potatoes. The meat indeed needs to cook for another hour, turning it twice more during this time.
After this additional hour, the stuffed turkey roll with spinach and speck will finally be ready! Let it cool on the kitchen counter for at least twenty minutes before removing the twine and proceeding to slice it. In the video recipe you will see that I cut the meat with the twine still intact, this is because I had to hurry to take the photos as my dad and Lauretta were on their way, I was indeed sure the roll hadn’t cooled completely yet. I wanted to avoid it opening while proceeding with the meat slicing.
Serve the slices of meat with the gravy obtained from cooking along with the roasted potatoes. All that’s left is to wish you bon appétit and remind you that I await you every morning in the Facebook group and page with the Recipe of the Day!
Tips and Variations:
As already indicated in the recipe text, one of the main tips I can give you is to cook the spinach ahead of time so that they can be well dried before starting the preparation of the oven-baked turkey roll. The second tip is not to rush, I know two hours in the oven seems a lot, but maybe you can take some time for yourself, do a hair mask, a face mask, call that friend you rarely hear because you never have time, get your kids to do their homework, chat with mom or grandma, watch a few episodes of your favorite series, in short, time for this recipe is crucial so that the result is what you expected!
For variations, you can opt for prosciutto if you don’t have speck at home, otherwise for a lighter taste, you can use cooked ham. I won’t write that you can replace the spinach because then you would be preparing a different recipe and not mine. Sorry, but that’s what I think, many times you ask me how to replace some ingredients used in my recipes, but this time I cannot, it wouldn’t be the recipe I just presented if we removed the spinach.
For variations, you can opt for prosciutto if you don’t have speck at home, otherwise for a lighter taste, you can use cooked ham. I won’t write that you can replace the spinach because then you would be preparing a different recipe and not mine. Sorry, but that’s what I think, many times you ask me how to replace some ingredients used in my recipes, but this time I cannot, it wouldn’t be the recipe I just presented if we removed the spinach.
