Fruit Turkey Thanksgiving Appetizer

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Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year, especially since our extended family lives all over the US. It’s a time when we come together to visit and do one of my favorite activities — EAT! While I am never the primary chef at Thanksgiving (Arien usually takes over and runs the rest of us out of the kitchen), my kids and I have a Thanksgiving tradition that we would love to share: our Fruit Turkey Appetizer.

Not only is this fruit turkey a healthy dish, it doesn’t require any cooking so it’s something the kids can do all on their own if they want to! It’s also completely customizable and ours usually looks a little different each year. Here’s our latest version of our fruit turkey.

Making the Fruit Turkey

To start, gather the fruits (or veggies if you prefer) that you want to make your turkey. I recommend at least 4-5 different fruits/colors to make the display more appealing. But as a mom, I just recommend picking foods that your kids will eat.

Kaiden went with mandarin oranges, Honeycrisp apples, green and red grapes, blueberries, and raspberries. We used a red pear for the turkey’s body, and a small slice of carrot for the beak.

We started by putting the pear down for the turkey’s body, and then lined the far edges of the turkey feathers with mandarin oranges.

Next, a line of green grapes went inside the oranges.

Watch out for kids sneaking the fruit as they prepare the dish!!

This is our turkey after we finished the rows of fruits. We only did one small line of blueberries as placeholders in the beginning, then went back and filled in more blueberries after the rest of the fruit was in place. It made that row look more full, without little berries rolling around everywhere. You can see the small piece of carrot cut to look like the turkey’s beak here.

For the eyes, we broke a toothpick in half and stuck each piece into a blueberry, then placed the eyes on the turkey’s head.

Plenty of fruit leftover for snacking.

And this is our finished fruit turkey appetizer! It’s perfect to serve as is, or with a side of whipped cream or cream cheese dip for some added flair. Next year we may change it up and do veggies, olives, and cheese cubes for a change. I’d love to hear your ingredient variations if you have them! Leave a comment below with some ideas. And Happy Thanksgiving!!

Check out these other Thanksgiving recipes from some of my favorite mom bloggers in our Thanksgiving Blogluck series:

• Turkey
• Stuffing
• Fresh Cranberry Orange Relish
• Classic Mashed Potatoes
• Rolls
• Gluten Free Chocolate Cranberry Pie
• Coconut Cream Pie
• Spiced Cranberry Pear Dump Cake

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