Oven Temperature Guide for Cooking a Perfect 20 lb Turkey

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To some, turkey is a succulent holiday centerpiece—to others, merely a vehicle for gravy. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on; the key to making sure everyone is happy is cooking a turkey so it comes out of the oven golden on the outside and juicy on the inside.

Anyone who has cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving before (Will it be a spatchcocked turkey this year? A grilled bird? How about confit?) or anyone who is cooking a whole turkey (or even a turkey breast) for the first time should follow this rule: you don’t need a complicated Thanksgiving turkey recipe. Just stick to the basics and let the side dishes steal the show. Everything you need to know is below, along with step-by-step instructions on how to cook and decorate the best turkey for your Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. 1. Thaw your turkey.

The ideal place to thaw a frozen turkey is in the fridge. Depending on the size of your bird, this can take up to a week.

There are faster ways to thaw a turkey if you’re in a hurry, but the safest way is to do it in the fridge.

4–12 lb. : 1 to 3 days 12–16 lb. : 3 to 4 days 16–20 lb. : 4 to 5 days 20–24 lb. : 5 to 6 days.

Want to brine your turkey? Now’s the time. You can put a frozen turkey in a wet brine right away. For a dry brine, you’ll need to wait a day or two until you can take the giblets out of the turkey and the skin is more flexible, which will help it hold on to the rub better. (A fresh turkey should also get some dry brine action at least one to two days before cooking. )2. Temper your turkey.

Take the turkey out of the fridge about an hour before you want to cook it. It will cook more evenly if it’s not too cold. It should be placed on a roasting rack that lets the turkey sit at or just below the top of your largest roasting pan. This will let air flow all around the bird, which will help the skin get crispy all over. No roasting pan? You can also use a cooling rack set inside a large sheet pan. 3. Tidy up the turkey.

If you haven’t yet removed the giblets, do so now. Check the neck cavity too. If you’d like, save the neck and giblets for stock, stuffing, gravy, or another use. The bird may also have a feather quill stuck in it now and then. You can pull these out with your fingers or clean needle-nose pliers.

The turkey doesn’t need to be rinsed, but you should pat it dry with paper or reusable towels if you just took it out of the brine or the package.

Set the oven rack to the lowest level and heat it to 350°F about 15 minutes before you want to roast. Some recipes say to roast the turkey for a short time at a high temperature in the oven before turning down the heat for the rest of the cooking time. People think that the high heat “sears” the bird and the low heat cooks it slowly, making a turkey that is more juicy and tender than usual. This method doesn’t seem to make a big difference, and it can turn the skin brown very quickly, which is usually not a good thing. You can do other things, like make your mashed potatoes and other Thanksgiving side dishes, when the heat is steady. 5. Butter your turkey.

Place the turkey breast side up on the roasting rack and cover it with room-temperature salted butter or your favorite flavored compound butter. (For a 12-to-14-pound turkey, you’ll need about ½ cup [1 stick] of butter. ) Work your fingers slowly under the skin, starting at the neck. Be careful not to tear the skin or pull it apart at the big hole. Some of the butter should go inside the big hole, and the rest should be rubbed over the skin.

You could swap the butter for a neutral oil like canola or safflower if preferred. Whichever fat you choose, follow these proportions to elicit crispy, golden brown skin and juicy meat. 6. Season your turkey (if necessary).

You can skip this last seasoning step if you chose to brine your bird (with a wet or dry brine). The inside of a kosher turkey is already salted, so you don’t need to salt it. However, you should salt the skin. For a 12- to 14-pound bird, put 1½ teaspoons of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper in the large cavity and another 1½ teaspoons of each on top of the skin. You can add other ground spices and seasonings to your mix at this point too. Go for smoky cumin or lemony coriander. Some cooks like to add a teaspoon or two of brown sugar. These flavorings aren’t essential, but they’ll go a long way toward giving your Thanksgiving turkey some personality.

Sounds random, we know. Putting a half-apple in the neck cavity instead of the large cavity—with the cut side facing the turkey’s flesh and the round side facing out—protects the breast from overcooking by blocking the heat. But don’t fill the main cavity with stuffing—it’ll only slow down your cooking time. Instead, prep your stuffing recipe in a casserole dish and bake it on the side. 8. Add some aromatics.

If you don’t stuff your bird, there’s room in the cavity for aromatics and vegetables, which will give the bird more flavor and spice and make the pan drippings (used to make turkey gravy) more interesting. Think fresh herbs, like sprigs of fresh thyme, rosemary, or parsley, or wedges of onion and celery sticks. Lemon or orange slices are good too. Add a dried chile or fennel stems that you have left over from a holiday side dish where you only used the bulb. Again, none of these things are strictly necessary, but they will perfume your turkey with lots of flavor.

You can also place some aromatics right in the roasting pan, under the rack. These will caramelize in the more direct heat, perfuming the meat and further flavoring the drippings. Whether you add aromatics or not, you should add two cups of water to the roasting pan to keep the fat from burning. 9. Truss the turkey.

You don’t have to use trussing, but it will help keep whatever you put inside the bird stable and help it cook more evenly. It doesn’t hurt that a trussed bird will look a little more Norman Rockwell–esque than an untrussed bird.

Don’t bother with a full truss, which needs a needle. Just tuck the tips of the wings behind the bird’s shoulders to keep them in place and keep them from getting too hot. The positioning of the wings also helps stabilize the cooked bird on a serving platter or cutting board. Next, use kitchen twine, kite string, or plain, unwaxed dental floss to connect the “ankles,” which are the ends of the drumsticks. Tying a knot in the twine is the last step. Wrap it around both drumsticks once or twice, pulling them together as you go. Make a normal overhand knot, but before you tighten it, thread one end back through the loop a second time. Then, tighten it. 10. Cover (and then uncover) the turkey.

To keep the heat from getting to the bird, loosely tent it with aluminum foil, shiny side out, right at the start of roasting. Covering the turkey with foil keeps the skin from turning too dark too quickly. Leaving the skin loose, on the other hand, keeps it from steaming and staying flabby. Remove the foil about halfway through cooking to get that burnished glow. 11. Skip the basting.

Some traditional recipes call for basting the turkey, ostensibly to moisten and flavor the bird. We’ve found that opening the oven door too often lets too much heat escape, lengthening the cooking time. Also, squirting or brushing broth on the skin stops it from browning evenly and can make it lose any crispiness it might have gained. The better way to ensure a moist bird is to dry-brine it before cooking. 12. Calculate turkey cooking time and temperature.

To find out how long to roast a turkey, just multiply the weight of the turkey by 13 minutes per pound at 350°F. For a 12- to 14-lb turkey, that’s about 3 hours. turkey), or 15 minutes per pound for a stuffed turkey. About three quarters of the way through the time, check the temperature again, and then every 10 minutes. Roast until the thickest part of the thigh meat or the thickest part of the breast meat reads 165°F (or 150°F, depending on the case; more on that below).

If, however, you prefer to roast your turkey at a higher or lower temperature, follow these guidelines. (The following cook times are for unstuffed birds. Usually, we don’t eat stuffed turkeys. Instead, we bake our favorite stuffing recipe with the turkey so it can reach a safe temperature quickly. )Cooking time per pound of turkey:For an 8-to-12-pound turkey:

The USDA says that a turkey needs to be cooked to 165°F or higher to kill any bacteria that could be harmful. For the juiciest meat, you’ll want to remove your bird from the oven when the temperature reaches 150°F. As the turkey rests, the temperature will continue to rise. Within 30 minutes of taking it out of the oven, it should reach 165°F. Food director Chris Morocco is one of the cooks who likes dark meat cooked to 190°F. This temperature breaks down more of the collagen and connective tissues, making the meat the tastiest. This higher temperature would dry out the white meat, so it’s best to only aim for it when cooking parts of your turkey.

No matter what temperature you choose for roasting the turkey, make sure you use a good meat thermometer to check the final temperature. Before, home cooks would use the color of the meat to tell if the meat was done. For example, if you poked a turkey with a knife and the juices came out clear instead of pink, it was done. For starters, the turkey may lose its pink color before it reaches a safe temperature. On the other hand, some turkeys, especially organic and heritage breeds, may never lose their pink color, even when cooked well above 165°F.

Choose between an instant-read thermometer or a remote food thermometer. A remote food thermometer has a probe that you insert before cooking and that connects to a digital display that sits on your counter. Either way, insert the thermometer so that its point reaches the thickest part of the turkey’s breast. Be careful not to touch the bone, which will skew the reading. You should also check the thigh to ensure the turkey cooks evenly throughout.

If the skin is getting too dark and the internal temperature hasn’t been reached, cover the browned areas with a double-thick layer of buttered aluminum foil. This will keep them from getting too hot.

After cooking the turkey to the right temperature, it needs to rest for at least 30 minutes before cutting it up. This gives the juices time to settle and be reabsorbed by the bird. If you carve it too soon, the water will drain out, leaving you with dry meat in a pool on the cutting board. Putting aluminum foil over the turkey while it rests is not necessary and will only make the skin go limp. When it’s time to carve, the turkey can rest for up to 90 minutes and still be hot. That gives you plenty of time to make the gravy.

How to cook a heritage turkey:

Heritage turkeys look, taste, and cook differently than your average Thanksgiving bird. Their thighs and drumsticks are longer, their breasts are leaner, and they are smaller than a typical supermarket turkey. Heritage birds generally top out at 14 to 16 pounds. If you plan on serving a larger crowd, you might want to roast two birds side by side. Plus, smaller birds cook faster than their meatier cousins, so you don’t have to get up at dawn to eat Thanksgiving dinner at noon.

Because they tend to have a more active lifestyle, heritage turkeys must be roasted differently to prevent toughness. Roasting the bird slowly, at a lower temperature, is the best way to achieve tender meat. You should still prep the bird with softened butter, salt, and pepper, as described above (or dry-brine it). To cook, set your oven to 325°F and roast for 3½ to 4 hours for a 12-to-14-pound bird. Most important, pay attention to the internal temperature. Because of how some heritage breeds are bred, their meat and bones may look pink even when they are fully cooked. As long at the temperature has reached 165°F on a reliable meat thermometer, you needn’t worry.

How long does it take for a 20 pound turkey to cook in the oven?