How to Roast a Thanksgiving Turkey

Turkey is the star of the Thanksgiving show, but if you have never cooked a bird you might be hesitant to undertake the main course. Don’t be intimidated by the mighty bird! MYETX will help you conquer it.

What You Need…

Ingredients

1 turkey, any size
2 cups broth or water
Melted unsalted butter (optional, for basting)

Equipment

Roasting pan

Roasting rack
Turkey baster or spoon

Instructions

1. First things first: thaw your turkey completely before putting it in the oven. Turkeys are big and take a long time to defrost. The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends thawing the bird either in the refrigerator (one day for every four to five pounds), immersed in cold water (30 minutes per pound), or in the microwave according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Never leave a turkey out to thaw at room temperature

2. Prepare the Turkey for Roasting – About an hour before roasting, take the turkey out of the fridge. Remove any packaging and the bag of giblets (check in the body cavity and in the neck cavity). Set the turkey breast-side up on the roasting rack and let it sit. This takes the chill off the meat, which helps the meat cook faster and more evenly, and it dries out the skin, which promotes browning and crisping.

3. Heat the Oven to 450°F – Position an oven rack in the bottom third of your oven. If you brined your turkey, as we did, no need to do anything now. If your turkey is straight out of the package, rub it with some salt and pepper before putting it in the oven. We recommend leaving your turkey un-stuffed and un-trussed, both because it’s easier and because the turkey will cook more evenly.

Optional Extras – Rub your turkey with butter or oil for a richer flavor and browner skin, rub minced herbs or ground spices into (or beneath) the skin for more flavor, place a few halved lemons or garlic cloves inside the cavity of the turkey.

4. Roast the Turkey – Pour two cups of broth or water into the roasting pan. Place the turkey in the oven and turn down the heat to 350°F. We’re going for a breast-side up approach here. Some recipes advocate starting the turkey breast-side down to shield the breast meat, but the idea of flipping a hot, sputtering turkey is not our idea of a good time. Instead, we like to shield the breast meat with foil toward the end of cooking if it starts getting too browned.

5. Cooking Time – The rule of thumb for cooking a turkey is 13 minutes per pound. So our 16-pound turkey should have taken about 3 1/2 hours to cook. However, some factors like brining the bird, cooking with an empty (un-stuffed) cavity, and leaving the legs un-trussed will contribute to much faster cooking. Plan on the 13-minute-per-pound rule, but start checking the temperature of your turkey about halfway through the scheduled cooking time to gauge how fast it’s cooking.

6. Baste the Turkey – Every 45 minutes, remove the turkey from the oven, close the oven door (don’t let that heat out!), and baste the turkey all over. To baste, tilt the pan and use a turkey baster or spoon to scoop up the liquids and drizzle them on top of the turkey. Basting with pan juices cools the surface of the turkey and slows down cooking, which in turn keeps the breast meat cooking at close to the same rate as the legs and thighs.

Optional Extra – In the last 45 minutes or so of cooking, baste the turkey with melted butter or oil. This helps crisp up the skin and turn it a beautiful deep golden brown.

7. Check the Temperature – To make sure that turkey is fully cooked through and through, we like to check its temperature in three places: the breast, the outer thigh, and the inside thigh (see photos above). In every case, the meat should be at least 165°F. If any place is under that temperature, put the turkey back in the oven for another 20 minutes. Shield the breast meat with foil if needed to keep it from overcooking.

8. Rest the Turkey – Grab one side of the roasting rack with an oven mitt and tilt the turkey so liquids inside the cavity run out into the pan. (These juices are used to make the gravy.)

Then, lift the whole turkey (still on the rack) and transfer it to a cutting board. Tent the turkey with aluminum foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This gives time for the meat to firm up and the juices to be re-absorbed into the muscle tissue, making the turkey easier to slice and taste juicier.

9. Carve the Turkey – Carve the turkey the same way you would carve a chicken. Remove the wings first, then the thighs, then the breast meat. Once you have the meat off, you can separate the thighs into thighs and drumsticks and carve the breast meat into individual slices.

That’s all there is to it! Roasting a turkey is really just like roasting a large chicken. The same methods and ideas apply. Even if you don’t get fancy with spices or special basting liquids, your turkey will still turn out browned, moist, and flavorful.

One more thing! We know around the holidays people tend to leave food out and graze the rest of the day. The leftover meat needs to be refrigerated within two hours of cooking, after which the risk of something nasty taking up residence starts to increase exponentially.