How to Make a Classic Roast Turkey

What Did I Get Myself Into?

If you’ve decided to roast the ubiquitous turkey for your holiday dinner, you might be wondering if you might have oversold your abilities. But I’ve got you. Here’s how to make a delicious feast your guests will love. I tend to get a little technical; for these sections, I included a TL;DR as well as more detailed directions.

The first thing you need to do is decide how much you want to take on. If you’re new to this whole thing, I strongly suggest starting with a boneless turkey breast or a bone-in breast. They’re much easier to manage than a whole turkey.

Cooking a turkey isn’t hard, but it is time-consuming. A boneless breast will go a little faster than a bone-in turkey. You’ll need to factor in total prep time to make sure it’s done by the time you want to eat.

Bone-in Turkey – Total prep and cook time: approximately 3 ½ to 5 hours

• Rest time before cooking: 30 minutes
• Cleaning: 10 to 15 minutes
• Butter application: 10 minutes
• Roast time: Roast for 30 minutes at high temperature, followed by 15 minutes per pound at a lower temperature. A 12-pound turkey will take about 3 to 3 ½ hours
• Rest time after cooking: 30 minutes

Boneless Turkey – Total prep and cook time: 2 to 3 hours

• Rest time before cooking: 30 minutes
• Butter application: 10 to 15 minutes
• Roast time: Roast for 30 minutes at high temperature, followed by 15 to 20 minutes per pound at a lower temperature. A 3-pound turkey will take about 90 minutes
• Rest time after cooking: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• Turkey: figure 1 to 1 ½ pounds per person, raw weight – a 12-lb turkey will feed 6-8 people with leftovers.
• Herb Butter Mixture: butter, ground sage, ground thyme, salt, and pepper.
• Aromatics for the cavity of a bone-in turkey: optional, but add a little something extra.
• 2 to 3 cups liquid for roasting pan: leftover water from the aromatics plus 1 to 2 cups chicken, vegetable or turkey broth, or plain water depending on pan size.

Gear

• Roasting pan (make sure it fits your oven before cooking!)
• Roasting rack (can also use tin foil strips crumpled lengthwise to make thick sticks)
• Meat thermometer
• Large carving knife or electric knife
• Large cutting board
• Large fork or tongs
• Large plate or baking pan
• Tin foil
• Disposable food-safe gloves (optional) or a plan to wash your hands before touching anything after handling the turkey
• Kitchen twine for trussing (optional; whole turkey only)

Thawing the Turkey

TL;DR

If you bought a frozen turkey, it needs to thaw. Give it 1 day for every 4-5 pounds to thaw completely. A 12-pound turkey will need 2 ½ days to get there. If you need a thawed turkey in a hurry, keep it in the original packaging and submerge it in cold water. Change the water every 30 minutes if it’s thawing outside of the refrigerator.

The Details

When you buy your turkey, it’s most likely frozen. And I don’t mean a little frozen; it is practically a weapon. Before your main event, you’ll need to give it lots of time to thaw.

You’ll need about 1 day for every 4-5 pounds. A 12-pound turkey will need 2 ½ days to thaw. The very best place to do this is in your fridge. Try to thaw it on the lowest shelf so a leaky package doesn’t drip all over everything. For extra protection, put a plate, baking sheet, or plastic bag underneath it.

If you bought your turkey the day before cooking or just forgot about it (guilty!), you can do a quick thaw in water. Keep it wrapped in its original packaging and find a pot or other container deep enough to allow it to be covered by the water.

A small turkey in a pot may fit in your fridge and can just hang out. A larger bird can be stashed in a sink, tub, clean 5-gallon bucket, or cooler full of cold water, but you need to change the water every 30 minutes.

Food Safety

TL;DR

Use care when handling raw poultry to avoid spreading Salmonella. Wash cutting boards, plates, utensils, etc. that have touched the raw turkey in hot soapy water before using them for anything else. Use disposable gloves or wash your hands immediately after handling raw poultry.

The Details

Before we get into cooking, a word about raw poultry and food safety. Poultry is notorious for carrying the bacteria Salmonella. A brush with Salmonella probably won’t kill a generally healthy person, but you might wish it would. It is a truly unpleasant experience.

To prevent you and your guests from getting food poisoning, use care when handling raw poultry.

• To avoid cross-contamination, never put cooked meat or other foods on plates or cutting boards used for raw poultry unless they’ve been thoroughly washed.
• Use disposable gloves whenever handling raw meat. Discard them before touching anything else by peeling from the wrist down, enclosing the part that touched the meat inside the glove.
• Do not wash poultry under running water. The running water will aerosolize and spread poultry bacteria all over your kitchen.
• Wash anything that has touched or been touched by the raw meat with hot soapy water (countertops, cutting boards, dishes, utensils, hands, etc.).

Turkey Time

TL;DR

Let the turkey rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Use this time to prepare the aromatics, herb butter, and a small dish of ground sage, thyme, salt, and pepper.

Preheat your oven to 425° F (220° C). Adjust or remove the racks to make sure you have enough room to fit the turkey and the roasting pan.

Set up the roasting pan with the rack or pieces of foil rolled into thick sticks.

Then remove the outer packaging. Bone-in turkeys will have neck, giblets, and gravy package stuffed in the cavity. Remove these. There will be a net around the boneless turkey; leave that in place until after roasting.

The Details

A couple of posts back, I talked about mise en place, or the concept of organizing your ingredients and tools before you start cooking. In this case, we’ll be using mise en place to have everything ready and on hand to prevent kitchen cross-contamination. You don’t want to be digging through cupboards trying to find the sage or a piece of tin foil when your hands are covered in raw turkey juice.

The first thing you need to do is let the bird rest for about 30 minutes. This will help it cook more evenly.

Seasoning Prep

While the turkey is having its pre-roast rest, prepare the aromatics, mix up the herb butter, and set aside a separate bowl of sage, thyme, salt, and pepper to use for the final seasoning.

Pro-Tip: Set the butter out about an hour before you need it so it will be soft

Roasting Pan

Get the roasting pan ready by adding a rack or using tin foil strips to make thick sticks for the turkey to lie on. You’re going to add liquid to the pan later, and the goal is to keep the turkey from resting in it and getting all soggy.

Turkey Prep

While you’re working on the bird, preheat your oven to 425° F (220° C). Adjust or remove the racks to make sure you have enough room to fit the turkey and the roasting pan.

At this point, I recommend putting on a pair of disposable gloves or having a plan to wash your hands a lot because you’re going to be all up in that turkey.

Next, remove the turkey from the package. This should be done in the sink or right in the roasting pan. It’s sometimes messy, and there will be turkey juice that you want to keep contained. When the turkey goes into the roasting pan, put it breast side up.

Bone-in turkeys often come with cavity prizes in the form of a neck, a pack of giblets (heart, liver, gizzard, and sometimes kidneys), and, if you’re lucky, a packet of gravy. Once the turkey is free from the packaging, dig around in the cavity to find your loot.

The neck and giblets are often used to flavor the gravy or in the stuffing. Discard if you’re not cooking them. Put the gravy packet in the sink for now. When you’re done handling the turkey, wash the packet with soapy water to decontaminate it and pop it in the fridge for later.

Remove your gloves and put them in the trash right away, or wash your hands well with soap and water.

The Buttering

TL;DR

Work the herb butter under the breast skin and then all over the outside of the turkey. Use the small dish of herbs to sprinkle on after the butter has been applied. Using tongs, place the aromatics inside the cavity. Pour the aromatic water into the pan and add enough water or broth to cover the bottom. Truss the legs of a whole turkey if desired.

The Details

If you’re using gloves, put them on now. Remove and discard the tin foil, then pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Dispose of the paper towels.

Working from the neck area, gently loosen the skin with your fingers and separate it from the meat. Using about ⅓ of your butter mixture, rub it directly into the meat, under the skin.

Rub the rest of the butter all over the outside of the turkey. Using your seasoning mixture in the little dish, season the outside of the turkey.

Remove the aromatic solids from the water with tongs and place them inside the cavity. You don’t want to stuff the cavity; this will slow down your cooking time.

Pour the aromatic water into the bottom of the roasting pan. Add enough water or broth so the liquid covers the bottom of the pan without touching the turkey. The extra liquid will help keep the turkey from drying out during the cooking process.

It’s not necessary, but if you want to, wrap some cooking twine around the legs of a whole turkey (also known as trussing) to close up the cavity.

The Roasting

Now we’re getting to the fun part.

Roast at 425° F (220° C) for 30 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 325° F (165° C) for the remaining time.

Most of this part is downtime. You just need to keep an eye on the cooking progress. The best way to do this is with a meat thermometer. The turkey is done when the thickest part of the breast registers 160° F to 165° F (71° C to 74° C), and the thickest part of the thigh registers between 170° F and 175° F (77° C to 79° C). If you poke the breast or thigh with a fork, the juices should run clear.

Behold, my meat thermometer collection.

If the skin is looking a little more crispy than you’d like before it’s done, cover the breast loosely with tin foil.

Resting and Carving the Turkey

The final steps are to rest the turkey and cut it up for serving.

TL;DR

Remove the turkey from the roasting pan and put it on a cutting board. Save the liquid inside the pan for flavoring the gravy.

Tent the turkey loosely with tin foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes before carving. Remove the aromatics from the cavity and discard.

Carve the turkey, cutting only what you need to serve to guests (leave the rest intact to prevent it from drying out). This video from the Culinary Institute gives step-by-step instructions for carving.

The Details

Resting is important because it allows all of the juices that were pushed to the interior during the cooking process to redistribute back toward the surface. This makes for juicier meat and less mess when carving.

To rest your turkey, use forks or tongs to remove the turkey from the roasting pan and put it on the cutting board. Save the liquid inside the pan to use to flavor the gravy later. Tent the turkey loosely with foil. Rest your turkey for at least 30 minutes to let the juices redistribute.

Carving is the last step. Cut only what you need to serve to guests and leave the rest intact to prevent it from drying out. This video from the Culinary Institute gives step-by-step instructions for carving a bone-in turkey.

If you’re carving a boneless turkey, remove the netting. Starting at the end, carve 1/4 or 1/2 inch thick pieces. Place on a serving platter or baking pan and cover with foil to keep warm.

A final note: Holiday media often show a perfectly presented turkey on a beautiful platter surrounded by citrus and sprigs of sage or rosemary. Our turkey probably isn’t going to look Hollywood-perfect. Mine is usually heaped into a baking pan covered by a piece of foil to keep it warm. All that matters is that it will taste amazing.

How did it go? Let me know in the comments!

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