Thanksgiving Fruit Turkey

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and the day can often be about overeating lots of yummy (and maybe not super healthy) foods. I thought a fun Thanksgiving fruit turkey appetizer for the kiddos would be a great addition to the day.

Plus if you let the kids make it, it’s also a Thanksgiving day craft too! I’ve seen lots of fun turkeys made with apples, marshmallows and candy eyes but I really wanted to make a healthy version.

The boys are decent apple eaters so we usually have those on hand, raisins are a pantry staple and Peter loves his American cheese slices, so we had almost everything we needed. I only had to buy pears.

I couldn’t decide between a red pear and Bosc pear, so I bought both. 🙂 I think either pear makes a great turkey body.

Prep Fruit Turkey Ingredients

I suggest prepping the fruit ahead of time (although not too far in advance otherwise the apple slices will brown). Regular apple slices will not sit flat and act like feathers. You need to slice a strip off the back of each slice so that they will cooperate.

My boys were fighting over who got to eat the extra apple strips while I prepped our turkey fruit supplies. It was a fight I was actually happy about. 🙂

I don’t think Kraft American Singles would work well for this project, I think it would be hard to cut little feet without the cheese smooshing into the cutting board. We had thicker slices of real American cheese on hand that worked ok.

One raisin cut in half created each set of eyes. Squish the sticky side of the cut raisins on to the pear.

The boys had fun designing their turkeys. Elliot even insisted on a HUGE nose for his turkey. I think he is quite influenced by Olaf still. 😉

Once we were happy with our turkey designs, it was time to eat! In the end, the boys confiscated all the apples for themselves and left the pears for me… they aren’t big pear eaters yet.

The project overall was a total win for me, it was fun, festive and a healthy snack all rolled into one!