How to Roast a Turkey: The Ultimate Guide for a Juicy and Crispy Bird

This is genuinely the best roasted turkey recipe you’ll ever need. Prepare to create a turkey with incredible depth of flavor, meat so tender it melts in your mouth, and skin that boasts a satisfying crispness. We wholeheartedly recommend this method to anyone tackling a turkey, especially for cherished occasions like Thanksgiving!

While roasting a turkey might not be an everyday affair, when the occasion calls for it, we believe in going all out. Our secret weapon? Homemade herb turkey butter, a luscious blend of butter, garlic, and aromatic herbs. We generously tuck this flavorful butter under the skin, infusing the meat with moisture, vibrant color, and unparalleled taste. Then, we brush even more of this magical butter all over the turkey’s exterior. Yes, it’s a generous amount of butter, but trust us, the result is absolutely worth it!

This recipe is my go-to for Thanksgiving turkey, but it’s equally delightful any time of the year you crave a show-stopping centerpiece. If you’re cooking for a smaller gathering, our recipe for garlic herb roasted turkey breast offers a perfectly scaled-down alternative.

Planning Your Perfect Turkey: A Thanksgiving Timeline

For many of us, roasting a turkey is a once-a-year tradition, primarily during the holiday season. To help you plan seamlessly, here’s our recommended timeline for thawing, brining, and roasting your turkey. We’ll use Thursday as the target roasting day, aligning with Thanksgiving in the US, but feel free to adjust the days to suit your schedule.

This timeline assumes you are starting with a thawed turkey. If your turkey is frozen, please refer to our thawing tips provided below.

Monday: Begin brining your turkey. We are firm believers in brining for enhanced flavor and moisture. Our favorite turkey brine recipe, which we use in our roasted turkey video, is a game-changer.
Wednesday night: Remove the turkey from the brine and pat it dry. Then, place it uncovered in the refrigerator overnight. This air-drying step is crucial for achieving the ultimate crispy skin.
Thursday: It’s roasting day! Set aside approximately 14 minutes of roasting time per pound of turkey in an oven preheated to 325°F (162° C). Detailed roasting instructions are provided below to guide you to turkey perfection.

The Secret to the Best Roasted Turkey: Herb Butter and Basting

The cornerstone of a truly exceptional, juicy roasted turkey is fat. Juicy turkey is what everyone desires, but the reality is that turkey meat is naturally lean. This is precisely why we strongly advocate for using a generous amount of our herb butter. While I might typically be more conservative with butter in everyday cooking, turkey, especially Thanksgiving turkey, is the exception.

Basting is another essential technique we swear by for roasting turkey. Basting the turkey with fat throughout the cooking process is key to maintaining moisture and developing rich flavor in the skin. Notice that I emphasize basting with fat. Simply spooning broth over the skin won’t achieve the same results. You need to use the rendered fat from the turkey drippings! A turkey baster is an invaluable tool here. Use it to collect the layer of fat that rises to the top of the broth in your roasting pan. This rendered fat is liquid gold for creating beautifully browned and flavorful turkey skin. I typically baste my turkey every 30 minutes or so during roasting.

We recommend roasting your turkey in an oven preheated to 325°F (162°C). The exact cooking time will depend on the size of your turkey and your oven’s performance. A general guideline is to roast for approximately 14 minutes per pound. For instance, a 15-pound turkey will require around 3 ½ hours of roasting time.

The most reliable way to determine if your turkey is cooked to perfection is by using a food thermometer. Check the internal temperature in several spots, particularly in the thickest part of the thigh, being careful to avoid hitting the bone. It’s wise to check the temperature on both sides of the turkey to ensure even cooking.

I typically remove my turkey from the oven when the internal temperature reaches 160°F. While the USDA recommends 165°F, my experience has shown that carry-over cooking will continue to raise the temperature after you remove it from the oven. As a visual indicator, you want to roast the turkey until the juices run clear when you pierce the thigh with a knife.

Once your turkey is out of the oven, it’s crucial to let it rest for at least 30 minutes, and ideally up to an hour. Loosely tenting it with foil will help keep it warm while you prepare the rest of your meal and get ready to carve. If you need to keep the turkey warm for longer than an hour, you can place it in a 200°F oven, covered with foil to prevent it from drying out.

Expert Tips and Tricks for the Best Roast Turkey

How to Thaw a Whole Turkey Safely: The safest and most recommended method for thawing a turkey is in the refrigerator. Plan for approximately 24 hours of refrigerator thawing time for every four to five pounds of turkey. A 15-pound turkey will take three to four days to thaw completely, meaning you would need to start thawing it the Thursday before Thanksgiving. To expedite the thawing process, you can use the cold water method (allow 30 minutes of thawing time per pound of turkey). When using this method, change the cold water every 30 minutes. If your turkey is not fully submerged, rotate it every 30 minutes to ensure even chilling. A well-insulated cooler can be helpful for maintaining the cold water temperature.

Trussing Your Turkey: We recommend trussing your turkey before roasting for a more compact shape and even cooking. To truss, position kitchen twine around the bird, tucking it slightly under the neck end. Bring the twine up and around the wings, gently pushing them towards the breast. Cross the twine at the cavity opening, forming an “X,” and then tie the ends around the drumsticks to secure them together.

Brining for Flavor and Tenderness: We are strong advocates for brining turkey and highly recommend it. However, it’s important to understand that brining is not solely about adding moisture. Instead, brining is primarily for enhancing FLAVOR and improving the texture of the turkey. Brined turkey is noticeably more flavorful and boasts a more tender texture. We have a comprehensive article with photos and a video demonstrating our brining process: brining a turkey.

Why We Don’t Stuff Turkey: We advise against stuffing the turkey cavity and do not recommend it. Stuffing a turkey is a common pitfall that often leads to overcooked turkey. This is because the stuffing inside the cavity takes longer to reach a safe temperature than the turkey meat itself. To ensure the stuffing is fully cooked, the turkey breast often becomes dry. It’s best to cook stuffing separately, on the side.

The Best Turkey Gravy Starts with Pan Drippings: For Thanksgiving gravy, there’s only one recipe I rely on, and it’s the one featured in our video. To recreate the delicious gravy in our video and photos, use our turkey gravy recipe which utilizes all those flavorful pan drippings from the roasted turkey!

Complement Your Turkey with Popular Thanksgiving Side Dishes

Best Roasted Turkey We’ve Ever Made Recipe

Use our oven roasted turkey recipe for a truly memorable turkey with incredible flavor, unbelievably tender meat, and wonderfully crispy skin. We highly recommend this recipe to anyone preparing a turkey for Thanksgiving or any special occasion!

We incorporate both brining and air-drying into our turkey preparation. Refer to our turkey brine recipe for detailed instructions. And don’t forget to make a delicious gravy from the pan drippings – it’s highly recommended and completes the meal perfectly. Air-drying the turkey in the refrigerator overnight before roasting is a simple yet crucial step to ensure that coveted crisp, golden-brown skin.

Yields: 14 servings (assuming 15-pound turkey)
Prep time: 45 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours 30 minutes
Total time: 4 hours 15 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Roast Turkey:

1 (12 to 20 pound) turkey, brined (recommended) and trussed
Turkey butter (recipe below)
1 large onion, cut into eight wedges
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
5 cloves garlic, smashed
8 fresh thyme sprigs
4 sage leaves
2 quarts (8 cups or 1.8L) chicken stock

For the Herb Turkey Butter:

1 pound (460 grams) salted butter, softened
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon (5 grams) coarse ground pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce or Pickapepper sauce
3 cloves garlic, smashed
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1/2 cup (14 grams) parsley leaves
1/4 cup (7 grams) sage leaves
2 tablespoons (5 grams) fresh thyme leaves

Directions:

Make the Herb Turkey Butter:

Combine all the herb turkey butter ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until the ingredients are roughly chopped. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and then pulse a few more times until the mixture is smooth and well combined.

Prepare the Turkey for Roasting:

Preheat your oven to 325° Fahrenheit (162° C) and position the oven racks so that the turkey will fit comfortably in the roasting pan.
In the bottom of a large roasting pan, place the onion wedges, carrots, celery stalks, smashed garlic cloves, thyme sprigs, sage leaves, and chicken stock. Place a roasting rack inside the pan, suspending it above the vegetables and stock.
Take about a quarter of the prepared turkey butter and place it in a small saucepan over low heat. Melt the butter gently, then remove from the heat and set aside.
Place the trussed turkey onto the roasting rack. Using your hands, carefully create pockets between the skin and the breast meat. Use a knife or kitchen scissors to make small holes where the drumsticks meet the thighs to create butter pockets there as well.
Rub the remaining herb turkey butter generously into the pockets you created under the skin and into the holes near the thighs. Massage the butter to distribute it evenly under the skin – this can be a bit messy, but it’s essential for maximum flavor infusion! I typically use almost all of the butter. Depending on the size of your turkey, you might have a little butter leftover. Alternatively, for less mess, you can use a disposable piping bag to pipe the butter under the skin and into the leg holes, then massage it to distribute.
Flip the turkey over so it is breast-side-down on the roasting rack. Brush some of the melted turkey butter all over the back of the turkey. Flip the turkey back so that the breast side is facing up, and brush the remaining melted butter all over the top surface of the turkey. Lightly season the turkey with salt and pepper.

Roast the Turkey:

Roast the turkey for approximately 14 minutes per pound. Every half hour, check the pan and baste the turkey with the rendered fat that has accumulated on top of the broth in the pan. If the liquid level in the pan gets too low, add some water to replenish it and prevent the vegetables from burning. I also rotate the roasting pan in the oven every hour to promote even browning. For a 15-pound turkey, the roasting time will be around 3 ½ hours.
When the turkey is about two shades lighter than your desired final color, loosely tent it with aluminum foil. Continue roasting until a meat thermometer inserted into several areas (breast and thighs) reads 160° Fahrenheit (71° C). Be sure to check both sides of the thickest part of the thigh, avoiding the bone. As a visual cue for doneness, the juices should run clear when you pierce the thigh with a knife.
Remove the roasted turkey from the oven and let it rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour before carving. To keep the turkey warm after resting, place it in an oven set to 200°F (93°C), loosely covered with foil to prevent it from drying out.

Adam and Joanne’s Helpful Tips:

Unsalted Butter Variation: If you are using unsalted butter instead of salted butter for the herb turkey butter, be sure to add an additional teaspoon of fine sea salt to the butter mixture to ensure proper seasoning.
Recommended Equipment: Consider using a brine bag or a 5-gallon bucket if you plan to brine your turkey (optional). A large roasting pan with a rack is essential. Disposable piping bags can be helpful for less messy butter application. Food-grade nitrile gloves are great for massaging the herb butter under the turkey skin. A basting brush and a turkey baster are also useful tools.
Nutritional Information: The nutrition facts provided are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values. Please note that calories and fat content may vary slightly as much of the butter melts down during roasting and ends up in the bottom of the pan.

Author: Joanne Gallagher