You can fuss over a turkey in a million different ways, but I don’t. With all due respect to the delicious turkey recipes and clever turkey-cooking techniques we have featured on this site over the years, I make our family bird every year by doing as little as possible, and I always get compliments on how pretty it looks and how good it tastes. Follow these instructions, and you’ll have a simple bird that comes out with juicy meat and crispy skin, while allowing you plenty of time to either relax or make extra side dishes—whichever suits your personality.
Gather your supplies: a turkey, two sticks of butter, a roasting pan, a thermometer.
On Thanksgiving morning, preheat the oven to 325°F. Remove the giblets and smear the butter all over the turkey.
This is the most important step: Do nothing until time is up. Do not baste the turkey. (You may tent it with foil if the skin is browning too fast.)
The secret is in everything we are not doing. We will not brine this turkey. We will not spatchcock it. We will not stuff it. We will not tie up the legs. We will not baste it. The only extra step that improves a turkey is smearing the skin with butter.
What you need to buy
First, the turkey. Aim for 1.5 pounds of turkey (raw weight) for each person on your guest list. Remember, the turkey you buy includes bones and giblets, so that’s not 1.5 pounds of meat. If you’re expecting 12 people, a 12-pound turkey will just barely feed them, while a 24-pound turkey will give you lots of leftovers. An 18-pounder (12 people times 1.5 pounds) provides generous helpings and is arguably the ideal size.
Other things you will need to roast a basic turkey:
A thermometer, ideally an instant-read digital thermometer like this one. This isn’t going to break the bank, and you will get plenty of use out of it, so don’t skip this item. You need it.
ThermoPro TP19H Waterproof Digital Meat Thermometer $13.29 at Amazon $19.99 Save $6.70 Shop Now Shop Now $13.29 at Amazon $19.99 Save $6.70Aluminum foil, to protect the bird’s skin if it starts browning too fast.
Herbs and seasonings of your choice, to mix in with the butter. I like to throw some onions and celery into the bottom of the roasting pan as well.
If you bought your turkey frozen, you’ll need to start thawing it well in advance of the big day. Put your turkey in the refrigerator for one day for every 4-5 pounds. Expect a 12-pound turkey to take about three days to thaw; a 20-pound turkey, five days.
A cold-water thaw, changing out the water every 30 minutes. To do this, place the entire turkey, still in its plastic wrap, into your kitchen sink or another suitable large container (even a bathtub). Expect this to take 30 minutes per pound.
Optional but recommended: Make a compound butter the day before
Sometime in the couple of days leading up to your big feast, make a compound butter. What to put in it is up to you, but you’ll be glad you made it. Here’s how:
When soft, use a spoon to smash in some chopped garlic, dried herbs, fresh herbs if you have any (chives are great), or even just a plain ol’ poultry seasoning blend from the grocery store. Want to get fancy? We have flavor ideas here.
Once the butter has softened, it takes all of five minutes to mash it together with the herbs, and you’ll look like some kind of gourmet chef when you tell people you rubbed the turkey with a handmade compound butter. Not sure which herbs to go with? Hum Simon and Garfunkel as you raid the spice rack: “Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme…”
There are differences of opinion in what works best, so just know that if you are comparing times across turkey-cooking charts, make sure you’re looking at the numbers for a whole turkey (not a breast or other parts) and that you want it unstuffed.
Here are the times recommended by the USDA for a turkey cooked without stuffing in a 325°F oven:
12 to 14 pounds: 3 to 3:45
18 to 20 pounds: 4:15 to 4:30
Work backwards from the cooking time to determine when to put the turkey in the oven. Here’s the formula:
Remember that it will take some time to get everything out of the fridge and prepped for the oven—I’d budget at least 30 minutes for that.
We might aim to get it in a smidge earlier to be safe, say 10:45 a.m. If you have to choose, it’s better to have the bird ready a little bit early (it can just rest a little longer) than to keep hungry guests waiting.
How to prepare a turkey for the oven
First, get yourself a nice clear space to work in. You do not need to rinse the turkey. You do want to avoid splattering raw turkey juices all over the place. This often means opening the turkey in a clean sink and transferring it to a roasting pan right next to the sink. Then you carefully throw out the wrappings and wash your hands.
Then we assemble our roasting pan:
Not optional: Place the turkey in the pan, breast side up, legs not trussed or tied or bound together in any way. Let them fly free. The turkey will take so much longer to cook if the legs are bound. Note that sometimes the turkey will come with the legs tucked into a strap of skin near the tail, so if your turkey looks like it’s sitting criss-cross applesauce, make sure to free them.
Technically optional but highly recommended: Smear the softened butter all over the turkey, ideally the compound butter you made last night. If you don’t have that handy, regular butter will do. If you forgot to soften it, it's OK to melt it in the microwave and brush it on. And if you don’t even have any butter, at the very least sprinkle some salt and pepper or poultry seasoning all over.
Finally, if you have a leave-in thermometer of any sort (such as a wired thermometer or a bluetooth thermometer), stick that in the breast, as deep as you can go without touching bone. This is for monitoring the bird as it cooks. When time is up, you’ll use your instant-read thermometer in several places to confirm the bird is done. And if that bird has a pop-up thermometer button? Take that sucker out and throw it in the garbage.
What to do while the turkey is in the oven
To facilitate my doing of nothing, I like to use a bluetooth thermometer so I can monitor the temperature from the couch in the living room. People will say “shouldn’t you be watching the turkey?” and I’ll look at my phone and tell them it’s on track to be done by 4.
Weber iGrill Mini $49.97 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $49.97 at AmazonWhile the bird is cooking, I strongly recommend doing some organizational work. Make a checklist of every dish you plan to bring out to the table, and begin working on anything that can be done ahead of time. If somebody wanders into the kitchen and asks if they can help, give them a job.
How to know when a turkey is done
A 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 those locations read at least 165°F. (The temperature will continue to rise as the bird rests, so it’s OK to take it out when it’s a few degrees shy of the target, but I don’t want to overcomplicate this. If you want a simple rule, 165 is the number you’re looking for.)
Pop-up thermometers also aren’t consistent; occasionally you’ll get one that pops before the turkey is done. And you’ll want to check that the turkey is cooked everywhere, not just in one spot on the breast. Don’t trust that button at all.
Let the turkey rest
Why not hours? Once the bird’s internal temperature drops to about 140°F, which usually happens during carving, the bird should be eaten and leftovers put in the fridge within two hours. (If you really want to push it, three or four hours is technically acceptable.) A whole, resting bird stays hot on the inside for a good while, but you don't want the bird sitting out so long that it cools.
Otherwise, your job as the Roaster of the Turkey is done. Make sure to get a photo of your beautiful turkey, and assign someone else to carve it. Refer to your checklist to be sure that everybody’s side dishes make it to the table, and you’ll look like some kind of hero who just pulled off the hardest job of the holiday.
Hence then, the article about i make this low effort turkey every year and everybody loves it was published today ( ) and is available on Live Hacker ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( I Make This Low-Effort Turkey Every Year, and Everybody Loves It )
Also on site :