Classic Thanksgiving Turkey
Description: This recipe gives you everything you want in a roast turkey: crisp skin, juicy and well-seasoned meat. It’s also extremely straightforward, the kind of thing you can memorize, then return to year after year. The important points are to dry brine the turkey in the fridge a day or two before roasting, brush oil or butter onto the skin so it turns gorgeously golden in the oven, and splash a little wine in the bottom of the roasting pan so the drippings don’t burn. Once you’ve figured out the amount of salt to use in the dry brine (see Tip), you can add herbs, spices and aromatics, or leave it plain and simple. It’s everything a classic Thanksgiving bird should be, no matter when you make it.
Ingredients
- 1 (10- to 12-pound) turkey, fresh or thawed if previously frozen
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper, as needed (see Tips)
- Optional dry brine seasonings (see Tips)
- 1 cup dry white wine, plus more as needed
- 1 to 2 cups chicken or turkey broth (or water), plus more as needed
- 2 medium red or yellow onions, peeled and quartered
- 12 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled (optional)
- 3 bay leaves (optional)
- 1 small bunch fresh thyme, rosemary or sage
- Olive oil or melted (or softened) unsalted butter, as needed
Instructions
- At least 1 day (and up to 3 days) before roasting the turkey, remove any giblets from the turkey cavity and reserve them for stock or gravy. Pat the turkey and the turkey neck dry with a paper towel.
- In a small bowl, mix together salt, pepper and any optional dry brine seasonings. Rub this mixture all over the turkey, inside and out, including under the skin of the breasts and thighs (don’t stress about this part, but if it's easy to separate skin from the flesh, seasoning the meat under the skin will deepen the flavor). Season the turkey neck.
- Place the turkey, breast-side down, on a rack on a baking pan along with the neck. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 12 hours and up to 3 days, turning the turkey so it’s breast-side up about halfway through the brining time.
- When you are ready to cook the turkey, remove it from the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature for 1 hour (this helps the meat cook evenly).
- Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the turkey neck in the bottom of a large roasting pan; add the wine and enough broth to fill the pan to a ¼-inch depth. Add half the onions, half the garlic (if using) and the bay leaves (if using) to the liquid in the pan. Stuff the bunch of herbs, the remaining onion quarters and the remaining garlic into the turkey cavity. Brush the turkey skin generously with oil or butter. (Using softened butter rather than melted allows you to add more since it clings to the skin better; if you like, you can smear some softened butter under the skin, too.)
- Place turkey, breast-side up, on a roasting rack set inside the roasting pan. Use kitchen twine to tie the legs together if you like. (It makes a neater presentation but doesn’t affect the cooking time.) Transfer pan to the oven and roast for 30 minutes.
- Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and continue roasting until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thigh and the breast (making sure not to touch bone) reaches a temperature of 155 degrees, 1 to 11/2 hours more (or longer for a bigger bird; calculate a total cooking time of about 12 minutes per pound). If the liquid in the bottom of the pan begins to dry out before the turkey is cooked through, top it off with a generous glug of wine, broth or water.
- Transfer the turkey to a cutting board to rest for 20 to 30 minutes (you can tent it with foil if you like) before carving. The temperature of the bird will rise to 165 degrees during this resting time. Be sure to save the drippings; you can use them for gravy (pour them into a batch of make-ahead gravy or start from scratch) or add them to any stock you make from the turkey carcass.