Anyone Can Make This Easy Turkey Roast

Thanksgiving has a reputation for endless pickling techniques, divisive side dishes, and contentious relatives. It’s no surprise that hosting can be stressful. If you don’t have the “Right Stuffing” , that is. This series is all about the Thanksgiving meal, and will help you create dishes that will show up on your table year after year, even if it doesn’t help you cope with the in-laws.

There are a million different ways you can mess with turkey, but I don’t. With all due respect to the delicious turkey recipes and clever turkey cooking techniques we’ve posted on this site over the years, I cook our family bird every year doing as little as possible and always get compliments on how beautiful it looks and how delicious it is.

In this post I’m going to walk you through this process. Follow these instructions and you’ll end up with a basic bird with juicy meat and crispy skin, and plenty of time to either relax or prepare additional side dishes, depending on your personality.

What do you need to buy

First, turkey. Aim for 1.5 pounds of turkey (raw weight) for each person on your guest list. Remember, the turkey you buy has bones and giblets, so it’s not 1.5 pounds of meat . If you’re expecting 12 people, a 12-pound turkey will barely feed them, but a 24-pound turkey will give you a lot of leftovers. The 18 lb. (12 people x 1.5 lb.) provides a generous portion and is arguably the perfect size.

When you go to a turkey store, you may notice that turkeys come in two sizes. Chickens are small, often weighing 10 or 12 pounds. And the volumes are large, often 20 or more. Therefore, you may have to use a smaller or larger turkey than would be ideal. Compensate for a small turkey by asking people to bring more trimmings; deal with the big one, sending everyone home with the leftovers.

Other things you’ll need to roast a basic turkey:

• Thermometer , ideally an instant-read digital thermometer. We have a guide to thermometers here . It won’t cost you much and you will get a lot of benefits from it, so don’t skip this point. You need it.

• Some kind of frying pan in which you can fry . A deep roasting pan is traditionally used, but you can also use a rack on a rimmed baking sheet . Personally, I use a Dutch oven without a lid.

• Aluminum foil to protect the bird’s skin if it starts to darken too quickly.

• Butter to coat entire turkey. Use two sticks of butter unless your bird is very small.

• Herbs and seasonings of your choice , mix with oil. I also like to throw some onion and celery into the bottom of the roasting pan.

• Optional: A turkey ladle or baster , not to baste the turkey (we won’t), but to catch drippings for gravy.

A week in advance: Make a plan for defrosting your turkey.

If you bought your turkey frozen, you’ll need to start thawing it well before the big day. Refrigerate the turkey for one day per 4 to 5 pounds . Expect a 12-pound turkey to defrost in about three days; 20 pound turkey, five days.

Check your turkey early and early on Thanksgiving morning. If it’s still frozen, don’t panic . You have two options:

1. Thaw with cold water , change water every 30 minutes. To do this, place the entire turkey, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the kitchen sink or other suitable large container (even a bathtub). Expect it to take 30 minutes per pound.

2. Fry it anyway. A roasted turkey can be roasted, but it will take 50% longer. This means that if you expected to roast the bird for four hours and it’s completely frozen, expect it to take six. If it is almost completely defrosted, it will take more than four hours, but less than six.

Optional, but recommended: Make the compound butter the day before.

Somewhere a couple of days before the big holiday, prepare a complex butter. What you put in it is up to you, but you’ll be glad you did. Here’s how:

1. Remove two sticks of butter from the refrigerator until soft.

2. Once soft, use a spoon to crush chopped garlic, dried herbs, fresh herbs if you have them (green onions work great), or even just a plain old poultry seasoning mix from the grocery store. Want to get creative? We have ideas of taste .

3. Place a stick of soft, flavorful butter in a baggie (you can shape it into a log) and pop it in the refrigerator until Thanksgiving morning.

Once the butter is soft, it only takes five minutes to rub it in with the herbs, and you’ll look like a gourmet chef when you tell people you rubbed your turkey with a handmade compound butter. Don’t know which herbs to choose? Cue Simon and Garfunkel as you raid the spice rack: “Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…”

If you somehow forget this step, the turkey can only be used with regular butter. (I’ll let you in on a secret: You’ll be fine without the butter, too.) I like making complex butter because it gives me a chance to work on that detail the night before, and I can assign the kid the detail if he’s looking. for a way to “help”.

How long does it take to cook turkey?

There are different opinions as to what works best, so just know: if you’re comparing times on turkey cooking charts, make sure you’re looking at the numbers for the whole turkey (not the breast or other parts) and what you want it for without filling .

We won’t stuff today’s turkey. If desired, you can make the pan with the filling separately. Or better yet, have someone cook it in the oven and bring it out while it’s still hot.

Here are the times recommended by the USDA for cooking an unstuffed turkey in a 325°F oven:

• 8 to 12 pounds : 2:45 to 3 hours.

• 12 to 14 pounds : 3 to 3:45.

• 14 to 18 pounds : 3:45 to 4:15.

• 18 to 20 pounds : 4:15 to 4:30.

• 20 to 24 pounds : 4:30 to 5 hours.

Work backwards from the cooking times to determine when to put the turkey in the oven. Here’s the formula:

Cook time PLUS 30 minutes rest = total time between the dish going into the oven and the time you can serve dinner.

Keep in mind that it will take some time to get everything out of the fridge and ready to go in the oven – I would allow at least 30 minutes for this.

So, if you have a 20-pound bird and want to eat at 4 p.m., you’ll need about four and a half hours of prep time, plus half an hour each side for prep and rest. That’s a total of five and a half hours, which means we’ll need to butter the turkey by 10:30 a.m. and have it in the oven no later than 11 a.m.

To be on the safe side, we might try to deliver her a little earlier, say 10:45. If you have to choose, it’s better to prepare the bird a little earlier (it might just rest a little longer) than to keep guests hungry. waiting.

How to prepare a turkey for roasting in the oven

On Thanksgiving morning, before you start cooking, remove the turkey from the refrigerator. Also remove the compound butter from the refrigerator to allow it to soften. The next steps will go much better if everything warms up for half an hour or so before starting.

First, give yourself a nice, clear space to work. You don’t need to rinse the turkey . You should avoid splashing raw turkey juice all over the place. This often means opening the turkey in a clean sink and transferring it to a roasting pan next to the sink. Then carefully discard the wrappers and wash your hands.

Your turkey will likely come in a small plastic bag with the giblets and possibly the neck included. If you don’t find them inside the large cavity at the bottom of the turkey, stick your hand through the top (you’ll have to lift up the neck skin, which tends to hang over the neck opening).

Then we assemble our roaster:

1. Optional: Place celery stalks, carrots and one or two quartered onions in the bottom of the pan.

2. Optional: Place the turkey in the pan, breast side up, legs unbound , tied or tied in any way . Let them fly free. If the legs are tied, the turkey will take much longer to cook. Note that sometimes the turkey comes with the legs tucked into a leather strap near the tail, so if your turkey looks like it has applesauce criss-crossed on it, be sure to release them.

3. Optional: Place giblets and neck in pan next to turkey or in body cavity. They will add piquancy to the sauce. (Of course, remove the giblets from the bag.)

4. Technically optional, but highly recommended: Brush the turkey with butter , ideally the butter you made last night. If you don’t have it on hand, regular butter will do . And if you don’t have any , at least sprinkle everything with salt, pepper or poultry seasoning.

I like to butter the skin of my chest and legs and then make a pocket under my breast and put the excess oil there. If you forget to soften the butter, you can melt it in the microwave. And if you have extra, put them in the cavity.

Finally, if you have any kind of leave-in thermometer (such as a corded thermometer or a Bluetooth thermometer), stick it as deep into your chest as possible without touching the bone. This is for monitoring the bird as it cooks. Once the time is up, you’ll use an instant-read thermometer in several places to make sure the bird is done. What if this bird has a pull-out thermometer button? Remove this sucker and throw it in the trash .

What to do while the turkey is in the oven

This is the easy part. Once the bird is in the oven, do nothing . After a few hours, see how the skin has darkened. If the bird becomes crispy and darkened before the bird is nearly done, “cover” it with foil (that is, you loosely cover the breast with a piece of foil).

To make it easier for me to do nothing, I use a Bluetooth thermometer to monitor the temperature from my living room couch. People will say, “Shouldn’t you be looking after the turkey?” and I’ll look at my phone and tell them everything will be ready by 4.

No, I don’t smear it. Basting is overrated. I let the oven and oil do their thing. If the pan seems dry while cooking, I add a half cup of water to make sure there is enough liquid to catch the drippings for the gravy. But this means adding water to the pan, not pouring it over the bird. You don’t have to, I promise.

While the bird is preparing, I highly recommend doing some organizing work. Make a checklist of every dish you plan to serve and start working on everything you can do ahead of time. If someone comes into the kitchen and asks if they can help, give them a job.

While you’re at it, make a to-do list for those who are busy, 30 minutes after the turkey comes out of the oven and before everyone sits down to eat. Perhaps during this time you will prepare the gravy or reheat the side dish in the oven. Prepare everything so that everything goes smoothly when the time comes.

How to Tell When a Turkey Is Ready

The turkey is done when you can insert an instant-read thermometer into the breast, the innermost part of the thigh, and the innermost part of the wing and all of these areas will read at least 165°F. (The temperature will continue to rise while the bird is resting, so you can remove her when she’s a few degrees behind the target, but I don’t want to complicate this too much. If you want a simple rule, 165 is the number you’re looking for.)

Once again, ignore the pop-up thermometer. Retractable thermometers are rated at about 180 degrees , which means breast meat can be very dry and tough. Some people like this texture; that is why the device was designed this way. (Many people don’t.) The doneness you choose is up to you, but for food safety reasons, you only want the meat to reach 165 degrees.

Retractable thermometers are also inconsistent; sometimes you get one that pops before the turkey is done. And you’ll want to check to see if the turkey is cooked everywhere , not just in one spot on the breast. Don’t trust this button at all.

How to Rest a Turkey

When the turkey is done, remove it from the oven and let it rest before attempting to carve it. The USDA recommends resting the bird for 15 to 20 minutes; many cooks prefer 30 minutes or more. I have seen recommendations to let the bird rest for a few hours , but I cannot endorse them. I would allocate 30 minutes.

Why not a clock? Once the bird’s internal temperature drops to about 140°F (which typically occurs during cutting), the bird should be eaten and leftovers refrigerated within two hours. If you really want to pick up the pace, three or four hours is technically acceptable, but that four-hour mark is a hard stop, okay? People could get sick.

While the turkey is resting, you can make the gravy either from scratch or by adding the remaining liquid from the pan to a store-bought or pre-made gravy starter. We have a basic gravy recipe : it’s simply a sauce (a mixture of flour and butter) combined with a flavorful liquid such as stock or the watery (bottom) layer of pan drippings.

Otherwise, your job as a turkey roaster will be done. Be sure to take a photo of your beautiful turkey and have someone else carve it. Refer to your checklist to make sure all the side dishes make it to the table, and you’ll look like the hero who just tackled the toughest job of the holiday.

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