Nov 03 2008
How To Cook a Turkey | Turkey Recipe Tips for Beginners | Thanksgiving Turkey Tips
Trying to figure out how to cook turkey? How bout how to roast a turkey. We are definitely in the month where people from all over are planning their turkey cooking for Thanksgiving, so I thought it would be fun to kick off this site with a bit of turkey cooking tips on the thanksgiving turkey. This is a good guide for turkey cooking for beginners. Here is a easy turkey recipe guideline to follow.
There is alot of information out there about how to cook a turkey, and tons of people looking for turkey cooking tips and it can be confusing and hard to figure out what to do and who to trust.
The following is meant to be simple, easy and full proof. Im going to write it in bullet points so that it can be easy to follow.
1. Defrost the turkey in the refrigerator. Makes sure you start out 3-5 days in advance as it will take that long.
2. Do not stuff the turkey with stuffing. Bake the stuffing separately. It is safer and the turkey will cook faster.
3. 24 hours before baking, remove the turkey from the package, discard the innards, (save the neck and gizzards for gravy) towel off the turkey and dry it. Then leave it in the refreigerator so that the skin can get even dryer. Removing the moisture will allow the turkey to get a very even crust and golden color.
4. BUY A MEAT THERMOMETER! The little thing in the turkey that pops out is a piece of crap. It is so inaccurate, that you, if anything are ensured to have a nice dry turkey. When using the thermometer that you buy, make sure it is calibrated, and insert it in to the fleshy part of the turkey leg or breast, away from bone. You want a reading of 165 degrees.
5. When Roasting, Start with a very high temp, I like 450. I will roast it for 30 minutes at that temperature, then drop it to 350 for the duration of roasting. The high temp helps get the turkey nice and golden.
6. Throw a few carrot pieces, celery, onions, bayleaf, and parsley stems into the cavity when roasting, it will help add flavor.
7. When you are about to roast the turkey, slide pieces of butter underneath the breast skin, and rub butter or your favorite oil all over the skin, This will make things nice and brown when roasted.
8. Seasoning is so important. liberally season the cavity and skin with salt and fresh cracked pepper.
Basically, thats all there is to how to cook a turkey. These Turkey cooking tips will make your Thanksgiving Turkey the best this year. When you want to get adventurous, you can start to experiment with different spice rubs, aromatics in the thanksgiving turkey, then progress to frying the turkey or even smoking it. But if you are a new turkey beginner, this is a good place to start.
Afterall, when you are looking for how to cook a turkey, what you want is something that is nice and moist, with crisp skin. All you thanksgiving turkey beginners, give it a whirl.
Someone the other day asked if they needed or could do it in a crock pot trio and I told them all you need is an oven…And better yet, you don’t need rival crock pot replacement parts either!
Any questions on how to cook a turkey, leave a comment and I will get back to you asap!
This is my first year cooking a turkey, and I was going to cook it in a 12 quart dutch oven (but in the oven, not over a fire). The turkey weighs 14.6 lbs. I was wondering if the oven temp would vary because of the dutch oven. How long would you suggest I cook it for and at what temperature?
Jill,
Shouldn’t affect the time or temp. Follow instructions above. But to be on the safe side, what you should do is check it in 30min, then 40 min. If it starts to brown too fast, back off the heat by 50 degrees, and when you get the color you want, cover with foil until interna temp is reached.
I can’t seem to find your estimate of cooking duration …is it by the pound? 20 mins/pound?
Diana
Roughly 10-12 minutes per pound for an unstuffed bird. so about 50 minutes for a 10-13 lb bird…