4. Turkey
Let’s keep it a buck: We only eat turkey because it’s tradition. There might be some great methods of preparing this main event of the meal—e.g., deep-frying that shit and going heavy with delicious seasonings—but there are far superior birds and meats out there. Here, the turkey is just the meat we cut through to get to what we actually want.
3. Stuffing
Sleeper hit! The stuffing may not be officially represented in the portmanteau, but it’s the nucleus. No turducken is complete without it. These are facts. There are a wide range of options — cornbread, seafood, pork, chicken dressing — and they all work.
2. Chicken
Chicken is great. Everyone loves chicken. But the chicken that represents the innermost bird of the turducken is something special. It soaks up the juices from the duck and turkey and gets all the immediate flavor from the stuffing. It’s just divine. And yeah, we said “divine.”
1. Duck
You know what tastes goddamn delicious? Duck. Succulent, flavorful duck. Duck alone with stuffing or dressing (know the difference!) is an underutilized holiday joy. And duck in the middle of a turducken is the star. It’s LeBron to the D-Wade and Chris Bosh of turducken poultries. Why else do you think it’s the only meat with its whole name in the turducken name? Think about it!
Read more: 5 Reasons Thanksgiving Is a Trash Holiday, Ranked