How to make a moist turkey

For moist meat without the hassle of clearing fridge space to soak the bird in a vat of brining liquid, try a dry brine. Salting a turkey and letting it rest before roasting seasons it deeply and helps it retain moisture.

Don’t butter your bird

Placing butter under the skin won’t make the meat juicier, though it might help the skin brown faster. However, butter is about 17 percent water, and it will make your bird splotchy, says López-Alt. Instead, rub the skin with vegetable oil before you roast.

Wash Hands and Surfaces; not the Turkey

According to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb, or veal before cooking it is not recommended. Bacteria in raw meat and poultry juices can be spread to other foods, utensils, and surfaces.

The bird should be prepared the night before. Mix the butter with the salt and freshly ground black pepper, then season the cavity of the bird. Rub the butter mix all over the turkey. Take the turkey out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature while the oven is heating up.

Do not stuff a slow cooked turkey. Grandma’s favorite stuffing recipe (normally cooked in the cavity of the turkey) will be a flop because the low temperature and moisture overnight will make it a soggy mess. This Thanksgiving be kind to yourself. Stuffing is best cooked separately at all times for food safety reasons.

Onions, shallots and garlic serve as the foundation of many of our favorite meals, so be sure to include them on Thanksgiving Day. A few cloves of garlic and a quartered onion combined with herbs or any other ingredients on this list are sure to give you a tasty turkey.

It’s simple, really. Salt the turkey, cover it, then stick it in the fridge. Overnight the salt draws moisture from the interior of the bird to the surface, where it combines with the salt and other seasonings. Eventually, that flavorful salted liquid is reabsorbed by the meat, seasoning it throughout.

Whole turkey: Apply kosher salt (1 teaspoon per pound) evenly inside cavity and under skin of breasts and legs, wrap tightly with plastic wrap, unless your recipe calls for air-drying at the same time as salting, and let rest in refrigerator 24 to 48 hours.

Can I roast my turkey the day before Thanksgiving and then reheat it? Turkey is always best served the day it is roasted. However, if you need to cook it ahead, carve the roasted turkey into thick slices, arrange in a shallow baking dish and refrigerate.

Even with tented foil, the high temperature of the roasting pan will delay the appearance of collected juices. If the turkey is stuffed, juices will take longer to appear, because the turkey will take longer to cook and some of the juices will be absorbed by the stuffing.

Pop it in the refrigerator (make room in advance!) and leave it there, uncovered, to brine for at least one hour per pound (a 12 pound turkey needs at least 12 hours) and up to three full days, depending on when you want to roast it.

Because dark meat has more connective tissues, it takes longer to break down, so if you cook the turkey whole, by time the legs and thighs are done, the breasts are overcooked and dry. After cooking, let the meat rest until it’s close to room temperature in order to let the juices redistribute.

Although you can cook a dry–brined turkey after one day, giving it three days yields a much more tasty bird. Use any cooking method. Once your turkey is brined, you can choose whatever method you like for cooking it: traditional oven-roasting, deep-frying, or even grilling are all fine to do with a brined bird.

The Master Recipe

Resist any temptation to rinse the turkey after brining. There will be no trace of salt on the surface and rinsing would only make the skin less prone to browning.

Want the most perfectly moist, flavorful, and juicy Thanksgiving turkey? Try dry–brining! All you do is rub the turkey with salt and let it hang out in the fridge for 24 to 72 hours. No muss, no fuss.

Do you rinse meat after brining? If you followed the general brine recipe—1/4 cup kosher salt per quart of water—and you didn’t brine the meat for too long, there’s no reason to rinse after brining. Just pat the meat dry after removing it from the brine.

Make enough brine to submerge the meat completely. There is generally no need to rinse the meat after using either brine listed above, just pat dry with paper towels.