How do I cook a turkey without drying it out?

Turkey has a reputation for dryness because the breast reaches its safe temperature roughly half an hour before the thighs do. Everything that works is a way of narrowing that gap: brining, shielding the breast, or cooking the bird in pieces.

Safety

What you'll need

• Turkey
• Meat thermometer
• Roasting tin
• Foil (optional)
• Salt for brining (optional)
• Butter (optional)

Step by step

1. Defrost it completely, in the fridge, allowing enough time.Roughly 24 hours per 2kg. A large bird takes several days. A partly frozen turkey cooks unevenly and cannot be made safe reliably — this is the most common serious mistake.
2. Brine it, or salt it a day ahead.A wet brine, or simply salting the bird and leaving it uncovered in the fridge overnight. Both help it retain moisture and both give a genuine margin for error.
3. Take it out of the fridge an hour before cooking.A fridge-cold bird cooks unevenly and takes considerably longer, which means more time for the breast to dry out.
4. Put butter under the breast skin.Ease the skin away from the breast with your fingers and push softened butter, or butter with herbs, underneath. It bastes the driest part from the inside.
5. Shield the breast for most of the cooking.Foil over the breast, or start the bird breast-down for the first hour and turn it. Both slow the breast so the legs can catch up.
6. Cook to temperature, not to a time chart.74°C in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone. Weight-based charts cannot account for shape, starting temperature or your oven.
7. Remove the foil for the last 30-40 minutes.To brown the skin. By this point the breast is nearly done and the colour develops quickly.
8. Rest it for at least 45 minutes, loosely covered.A large bird holds heat for a long time and the juices need to redistribute. Resting is also what frees the oven for the roast potatoes.

Tips

• Cooking the crown and the legs separately is the reliable professional answer. It removes the timing conflict entirely and it is much easier to fit in an oven.
• Do not stuff the cavity. It slows the heat reaching the centre, and the stuffing must reach a safe temperature too — cook it separately in a dish.
• A resting turkey stays hot for well over an hour under foil and a towel. Timing anxiety about resting is misplaced.

Common mistakes

• Cooking to a minutes-per-kilo chart — It cannot account for shape, starting temperature or your oven's actual heat. A thermometer is the only reliable measure.
• Stuffing the cavity — It slows heat reaching the centre, so the bird overcooks outside before the middle is safe. Cook stuffing separately.
• Not defrosting fully — A partly frozen bird cannot be cooked safely — the outside is overdone long before the centre reaches temperature.

Questions people ask