Slow Cooker Turkey with Gravy, Candied Sweet Potatoes & Green Peas

Thanksgiving in a flash! Slow cooked turkey that is browned, moist and tender, covered in a rich gravy with candied sweet potatoes and green peas in just 7 Ingredients (not including salt and pepper…but c’mon!)! In case you didn’t see the news yesterday, the FREE E-Cookbook 5-10-30 5 Cuisines, 10 Full Meals, 30 Total Ingredients was released for subscribers! It includes this recipe along with nine others worked into a perfect symphony with one another to create ten meals in only 30 ingredients! If you look at the recipe below, this one already has 7! So that means I added in another nine recipes for only another 23 ingredients!

This recipe is one of our favorites. Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday, which says a lot because I LOVE celebrating the holidays. If it had my favorite stuffing with it, this would be a meal I could eat every day for the rest of my life! The turkey is moist, and flavorful with a rich and creamy gravy on top. The candied sweet potatoes make we want to start Christmas shopping!

To make the turkey, add ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper to the bottom of the slow cooker. Add in turkey pieces, skin side up. Top with remaining ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Cook on low for 7 hours. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. 45 minutes before turkey is finished cooking, start working on sweet potatoes. Add salt (to taste, I use 1/2 teaspoon), pepper (to taste, I use 1/4 teaspoon), canola oil and 3 tablespoons brown sugar to sweet potatoes and combine. Spread sweet potatoes on a baking pan and roast in oven for 30 minutes. Remove turkey from the slow cooker. 

Pour the liquid left behind in the slow cooker into a measuring cup and remove as much of the fat as you can. Melt the butter into a saucepan on medium high heat and combine with 2 tablespoons of flour. Whisk and let cook on medium for a minute to cook out the raw flour taste. Add in the rest of the turkey liquid and let it cook until thickened, approximately 3-5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper (I use 1/2 teaspoon of each). Remove sweet potatoes and top with additional 3 tablespoons brown sugar. Microwave or steam the green peas. Serve turkey, covered with gravy, sweet potatoes covered with brown sugar and steamed peas on the side.

As an alternate way to make the peas, I sometimes reserve about a half cup of the turkey liquid, and microwave the peas in the liquid. It seasons them with almost no extra effort! You can also use a ¼ cup of the gravy to toss with the frozen peas and microwave, but they would be a bit creamier that way.

Tools Used in the making of these Slow Cooker Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken Thighs:
Slow Cooker: Love this slow cooker and how programmable it is, it has been a workhorse for me… until…
My New Slow Cooker: For larger roasts I also brown the meat in the insert and not lose a bunch of the flavor by transferring the meat and leaving the browned bits behind. If you’re thinking of a new slow cooker, consider it if your budget is open.

 You can choose to make turkey breast instead of dark meat, but I would not put it in the slow cooker. For one large 2 pound breast, I would roast at 350 degrees for 1 hour, tented with foil. The dark meat is really tender and delicious in the slow cooker though and if you don’t have a need to switch to white meat, I HIGHLY recommend trying it this way first.

This recipe is one of 10 in my FREE E-Cookbook 5-10-30: 5 Cuisines, 10 Full Meals and 30 Total Ingredients that is a bonus for email subscribers only! It includes shopping lists that set you up for two weeks of weeknight dinners with no ingredient waste and tips for cooking and alternate ingredient options. If you haven’t subscribed for updates you may want to now so you can download it today! The form is right below this post.