On Thanksgiving, there are those who spend hours sweating in the kitchen over a turkey and those who avoid all the stress and go out for a restaurant meal instead.
Over the last five years, there has also been an emerging fast-food option as more and more chains launch their version of the holiday bird.
Related: Thanksgiving Turkey (the Whole Thing) From Popeyes Returns
Restaurant Brands International QSR-owned Popeyes has been serving its Cajun-Style Turkey — a full-sized bird marinated in the Southern-style chain’s signature spice blend and delivered in a sealed vacuum wrap to quickly heat up at home — for the last 22 years since 2001.
Yum! Brands
This how you can get your hands on a KFC Cajun Deep Fried Turkey
While launched significantly later in 2013, Yum! Brands YUM chain KFC‘s Cajun Deep Fried Turkey has also been around for a long time and is making another return this holiday season in select states.
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Ranging between 14 and 16 pounds, the bird is what KFC describes as “tender, juicy, and deliciously prepared in our classic KFC style” and will be available to order in California, Utah, Colorado and Washington State for a starting price of $69.99.
Those who want to order a full Thanksgiving spread can get the Holiday Meal for $99.99 or a the Holiday Feast for $109.99 — the Holiday Meal features the bird alongside sides such as family-size mashed potatoes, gravy, coleslaw and a dozen biscuits while the Holiday Feast also has additional sides such as macaroni & cheese, sweet corn and chocolate cake.
Those who want this bird at their home will need to pre-order it at least a week in advance (preferably earlier since they have sold out early in last years) and then pick it up at a participating store on Thanksgiving morning. While already cooked, the birds needed to be reheated at 165°F and are meant to feed up to 12 people.
What’s in that Cajun sauce? The mystery remains
Despite the heavy inflation we’ve seen over the last few years, ordering the turkey in 2023 does not cost much more than the $59.99 it did back in 2013. (The spreads have, however, gone up in price.)
During the decade that passed, KFC has also stayed largely mum around what exactly makes up the “Cajun” part of it beyond it being on the spicier side.
“Cajun, however, is hard to pin down; it's difficult to burn a fried turkey,” writers for SF Weekly wrote when the Deep Fried Cajun Turkey first came out in 2013. “The contents of the ‘Cajun sauce,’ while not guarded with the fervor of the Colonel's 11 secret herbs and spices, are not known to even 20-year KFC personnel we spoke with. In the end, the best Cajun qualifier we could elicit is ‘it's got a little kick to it.’”
One of the managers at a KFC store that served the bird also told SF Weekly that the reason it ran out so fast was because they were too large to keep in large quantities at a single store.
“Have you seen my store?” Douglas Speigel told the news outlet. “We're narrow. That's why I only ordered 24.”
