This is the turkey. I’ve been perfecting this for many years now. I must say, it is a showstopper, and delicious to boot, because I treat it well. I send my turkey to a bacon spa. It gets a salt scrub, a bacon butter deep tissue massage, a hand-woven bacon spa robe, some time in the sauna and a little tanning to finish it off.
I’ve got a set of instructions here, more than a recipe, but this way there is enough detail to produce a beautiful bird.
The Turkey
I usually cook an 18 – 20 pound turkey. Not because I have a huge family, but because I like Thanksgiving leftovers. I always buy a fresh, never frozen turkey of the best quality I can afford. If you buy a frozen turkey, you need to get it in advance and leave plenty of time for thawing. You can do a computer search for the proper method. My methods below are for a big bird, but easily adapt to a smaller one.
What you’ll need:
A large plastic bag
A platter or pan that fits the turkey in the fridge
Kitchen twine
A roasting pan that fits the turkey (and fits in your oven. Check. This is important.)
A probe-style meat thermometer
A turkey
Lots of kosher salt
1 ½ pounds bacon
½ pound butter
Fresh herbs: sage, thyme, oregano, parsley, marjoram, rosemary
Roasting vegetables: carrots, celery, onions, leeks, apples
I dry brine my turkey for a juicy bird. I used to wet brine, which involved removing drawers from my fridge and stuffing turkey into a large stockpot full of salted water. That is a lot of trouble. Here’s my easy solution that makes for a lovely moist turkey.
Start the brine 2 to 3 days before Thanksgiving. Remove all the interior parts from the bird. Discard them or use them for stock, or the giblets for gravy. Wash the bird well, inside and out. Place the bird in a great big plastic bag. Cookware stores sell fancy “brining bags” but a cheap browning bag from the grocery works just as well, or a big ziptop bag. Go to town rubbing kosher salt all over the gobbler, inside and out. Use a lot of salt. Wash your hands. Tie the bag closed and place it on a platter or pan and put it in the fridge for up to two days. I do this on Tuesday, butter it up on Wednesday for cooking on Thursday. Thoroughly wash the sink you rinsed the turkey in. Right now.
Now we work on the flavor and added juiciness. I tinkered with this recipe for many years, until I hit on just the right method. I have always rubbed butter on roasted chicken or turkey, or covered it in bacon to keep the bird moist. For a big mama gobbler, I double down.
In a food processor, blend together ½ pound raw bacon slices, ½ pound butter and generous handfuls of fresh herbs. I like a lot of sage, some parsley, oregano, thyme, marjoram and maybe rosemary. A packet and a half of “poultry herbs” works well. Blend all this until you have a smooth paste. You can make this ahead and store the bacon butter in an airtight container for up to five days.
We eat our big meal at one o’clock, so I like to have everything ready to go in the morning. I prepare my bird on Wednesday evening and refrigerate it. I have a timer feature on my oven that lets me start preheating before I want to wake up, so the oven is ready for the bird when I stumble out of bed.
When you are ready to prepare the turkey, bring the bacon butter to room temperature. Take the turkey out of its salt bag and give it a good rinse. Place it breast side up on a large platter or pan that will fit in the fridge. Wash the sink you rinsed the turkey in. Now. If your turkey comes with a pop-up timer, remove it now. It’s useless. Wash your hands, remove your rings and watch and gently separate the skin from the flesh. Lift the skin by the cavity and gently slide your hands under the skin. It will pull away from the flesh. Keep going to get the skin opened up all the way to the neck and over the legs. Try not to tear the skin, but don’t fall apart if you do. It’s not a big deal. Now take big fistfuls of butter and rub it up under the skin and over the flesh. Use about ¾ quarters of the bacon butter under the flesh. Pat the skin down and press the butter into a pretty even layer under the skin. Rub the remaining butter over the outside of the bird, paying particular attention to the legs, which will not be covered by the bacon blanket.
There is nothing like presenting a beautiful bird to your guests at Thanksgiving, and if I may say so, this is a stunner. But the bacon is not only decorative, it amps up the juiciness of the meat and flavors the juices for the gravy. I use thick cut bacon, the best I can find. I don’t use any kind of artificially flavored bacon. My big babies use about a pound of bacon.
I think the picture really says it all. I weave the bacon strips into a lattice. It’s kind of like making those construction paper placemats from kindergarten. Lay one strip crosswise over the breast, then one lengthwise. Keep going, folding up the strips already placed to fit the new ones under. The bacon will shrink when you cook the bird, so place the strips close together and use as many as you can fit. Tie the legs of the bird together with kitchen twine. When you’ve got the bacon all woven, wash your hands thoroughly, put the bird in the fridge, fix yourself a bourbon and collapse on the sofa.
As I said, we do the meal for lunch, and I am not a morning person, so I do as much ahead as possible. With the turkey ready to go and the oven heated to 450 degrees, I get ready to roast. Remember, remove one rack and place the other in the right position to fit the pan with the bird. You don’t want to get everything hot, then have to move things around. I like good, flavorful juices from the bird to add to gravy. That really is the only thing that makes gravy worth serving. My roasting technique creates good juices.
Line the deep roasting that fits your bird with several layers of foil. It never makes clean up a breeze, but it helps. If you have a rack that fits a deep roasting pan, great. I use a grid that is technically a cooling rack. No rack, no problem. Just set the bird on the vegetables as follows. Cover the bottom of the roasting dish with a thick layer of aromatic root vegetables. Whole vegetables, don’t’ peel or chop, just remove the paper from onions and the tops from carrots. I use carrots, celery, leeks, onions and a couple of apples cut in half. Stuff an apple and an onion into the cavity of the bird. Tuck some fresh sage leaves and any other herbs you have around the bird. Place the rack over the vegetables if you are using one, don’t worry if it’s wobbly, or just put the bird on the vegetables directly. Take a piece of foil and mold it to make a shield to cover the bird if it starts to brown too much later. Remove the molded piece of foil to a safe place. It is really hard to properly cover a hot turkey in a hot oven. Roast the turkey at 450° for 30 minutes, then turn the heat down to 375° for the rest of the cooking. I highly recommend that you make the small investment in a probe meat thermometer, one with a probe to stick in the turkey and a long cord that plugs into a counter unit. Gently stick the probe into a thick part of the breast, carefully sliding it between an opening in the bacon blanket. Make sure you don’t’ go so deep you hit the bone. You want the turkey to be cooked to 165°. I usually set the thermometer to 155°, remove the turkey from the oven and cover the whole pan with foil. I let it rest until it reaches 165°. If the turkey and the bacon start to get too brown before the meat is cooked, cover it with your prepared foil armor. Generally, you need about 15 minutes cooking per pound of turkey. For a 20 pound turkey, I go 4 to 4 ½ hours. Leave your self some wiggle room, the turkey will happily wait under its warm foil wrap. Your guests are not likely to be so patient.
Now we have our beautiful cooked turkey. Remove the bird to carving board (preferably one with a well to collect juices). Allow some time for your guests to ohh and ahh and admire your bird. Then let the designated carver go to work. Pour the juices from the roasting pan into a measuring cup, or one of those neat gravy separators if you have one. Let the juice settle for a bit, skim off the fat, and add the delicious juices to your gravy.
And here’s a recipe for a simple, tasty make-ahead gravy.
The turkey looks amazing, and I will be using your recipe this week. Could get into more detail regarding dry brining? You say go to town on the turkey with salt. I’m just afraid this would make the turkey too salty.
I use a about 1/2 cup or more on a 20 pound bird. The turkey can take it.
ABout 1 1/2 of the clam shell packcages of herbs solrd at most grocery stores.
Sorry. I’m both a turkey and fresh herb newbie, but I’m so excited to attempt this for my family this Thanksgiving! I just needed a little clarification on the herbs. Did you mean half of the clam shell packages of each of the herbs or one and a half packages? Or all total the equivalent of about one and a half packages?
Thank you so much for sharing this detailed, awesome recipe and answering questions! With your guidance, I think I might be able to pull this off!
When making the bacon butter, does the butter need to be room temp before you put it in the food processor?
One and a half packages total in any combination (I like a lot of sage). Look for mixed packages of poultry herbs
The bacon rub smells like raw bacon but smells fabulous while it cooks. Enjoy!
Holy smokes this looks and sounds incredible. Can I just come over when you get to the collapse on the sofa with a bourbon part? I’ll supply the bourbon in exchange for some of that turkey!!!
Hi! I am making this for Thanksgiving 2012! Quick question, do you baste this turkey while it cooks? Thanks!
The bacon Is a built in baster. No extra needed.
I just made the bacon butter paste my husband was helping and he blended it so its very runny I wonder if once I put it in the fridge if it will harden I don’t want to throw it away. I also made alittle more which came out fine. What should I do??
I also used fresh herbs is that ok?
Just finished putting this together! Earlyt-day for us. In the oven as I write this,. I have a small bird, 13lbs. It looks great, took before pic & will take after. Thanks for the recipe & great directions.
Going for the shot of whiskey…
Only use fresh herbs, as listed in the instructions. The bacon butter will be soft when you first make it and firm up in the fridge.
When you butter up the turkey on Wenesday..do you just use regular butter? Then on Thursday use bacon butter to prepare to roast??
Hi I was wondering if you have stuffed the turkey with the stuffing and still wrapped it with bacon. We love the stuffing from the bird.
The recipe sounds and looks delish. This is my first turkey that I am attempting to cook, but i have one question. With the bacon butter, do I put it under the skin of the entire turkey or just the breast?
Do you know if this could also work on a duck as well?
I don’t know.
Put the butter under the skin all over the turkey. Make sure to read the recipe carefully a couple of times before you get started.
No, only bacon butter, which I do on wednesday, so in Thursday it is just ready to go in the oven. Make sure to read the recipe carefully a couple of times before you get started.
You can put stuffing in the bird, but it will increase the cooking time – and be very, very, very sure the stuffing is heated to 170 degrees to be safe to eat. I know people love stuffing inside the bird, but I can’t recommend it.
Hi! I am SO excited to try this!!! I already have the bird salted and sitting in the fridge! I’m curious though, do you use the vegetables that the turkey sits on for anything other than roasting? This is my very first year hosting Thanksgiving (and seeing an uncooked turkey, for that matter!) – GO BIG or GO HOME, right?
Mine is going in the oven now. I always make an extra turkey as there is never any leftovers at my sister’s house. I took photos in progress…can’t wait to post the photos on Pinterest and Facebook.Thanks for the detailed recipe! Happy Thanksgiving!
Love to see photos!
I don’t use the vegetables for anything but adding their flavor to the drippings for the gravy. The get very soft and mushy. Enjoy!
[...] Get the full recipe here. [...]
[...] Get the full recipe here. [...]
Okay, It’s 10:37 pm Wednesday night and I’m at the Baileys (bourbon) with 4 ice cubes part of the recipe. I misread the brine part. I thought you wet brined it. After further reading I see you dry brined it (I’ll do that next time). I sure it will still turn out great. I used a blender for the bacon butter. It worked but I had to help it along and the electric motor burning smell was getting pretty powerful. I’m very excited about tomorrows turkey. The kids even were impressed with the bacon weave job I did. I think its time for a refill. Thanks for posting this. I like your style!!
This is fantastic. I found this recipe and was all excited to use it for my first time making Thanksgiving dinner, or a turkey at all. It was seriously the best turkey I’ve ever had- flavorful and moist and amazing.
I even made a few mistakes. I didn’t have time to brine for a long time, so it was only in its salt bag for the night before I cooked it. I accidentally bought fake butter instead of the real thing and that’s what I used. And when I attempted to make the bacon butter in my food processor, the motor went up in smoke so I just let the bacon sit in the “butter” overnight and rubbed it on the next morning sans bacon (but still with the bacon blanket).
It still turned out amazing! I cooked it a little lower since I had other things I was putting in there too and it was fine and in fact was done sooner than expected.
The gravy recipe is great too! Especially with the drippings from this turkey. Thank you!
I made your Turkey today, Easy wonderful recipe. I always make a good Turkey , But this was the best I ever had in all of my 45 years, If someone has doubts about this recipe don’t it was divine!
The family just LOVED this bird, I have requests from them to forward your receipe. Thank You.
Wow! Thank you for posting this recipe with all the detailed instructions. I made it yesterday and my guests raved! The bacon got pretty brown and crisp before the turkey was done so we took it off and ate it as a snack, and then the breast skin crisped up. The gravy (fat separated out!) was fantastic also.
I think this will be a new tradition. Thanks for taking the time to share it!
I really don’t understand all the kudos – we made this for Thanksgiving and followed all directions to the letter. I have cooked turkeys for 30 years, and this was a failed experiment.
It cooked much faster than expected, but the worse part was the drippings for gravy AND the turkey meat were EXTREMELY SALTY. We always make our own gravy from drippings, and this was so salty that we had to add a lot of milk and water to make it marginally edible, but it lost it’s turkey flavor. The turkey meat was not that juicy and tasted salty as well. Needless to say, we have no leftovers because we tossed everything out.
I made our Thanksgiving turkey with your recipe and it was delish… thank you! I did a quick blog of our table setting and a few photos of the turkey as well.
http://candicekphotography.com/2012/11/23/happy-thanksgiving/
I made this and I have to thank you for the recipe. This was seriously the most moist and flavorful bird I’ve ever had.
This recipe was awesome and the turkey turned out really well! We usually do a smoked turkey but I think this was much “butter”. Thanks a bunch!!
I made this turkey yesterday and followed all the directions step by step. I had to read thru it with a pen to make sure I didn’t miss anything but it was worth the extra care. BEST TURKEY EVER! It was so incredibly tenderroni! And the flavor with all the herbs was something beautiful. I used a lot of fresh herbs and added the apples. The meat on the leg literally fell off the bone when I picked at it with a fork. No basting necessary. General comments include: “Best turkey I’ve ever had!” “I don’t really like turkey, but this is good!” “Could I have the recipe?” One friend said she is tired of seeing her mom stressed out over the turkey and is going to relieve her mom from the duty and use this recipe next year…I’m with her! My mom’s turkey is always dry! I thought I hated turkey…thank you for making me give turkey a second chance! Oh and I’ve only made a turkey once before in my life! Probably around 10 years ago.
This was absolutely the BOMB!!! Worth all the prepping…did not do the “lattice” like you did, and tweaked a few things to my liking…but, it was unbelievable. No basting and oh sooooo moist!!! I am going to put your recipe on my cooking blog!!! I hope you don’t mind….Thanks!!
I ended up baking this in a tabletop roasting oven to keep from heating up the kitchen. We celebrated Thanksgiving today. This bacon covered turkey was a HUGE hit! If I figure out how to post the picture, you will see a naked-bacon spot. That is from where my husband and brother-in-law started picking while my back was turned! Very few leftovers this year. I followed your instructions completely. FANTASTIC! Thank you!
…and made the make-ahead gray, too. I stink at making gravy, but this turned out amazing!
Made this for Thanksgiving. I had a problem with the bacon butter. I made it to recipe except I substituted dried herbs instead of fresh as that was all I had. Butter looked good but cooked weird. I thought it would all melt but it slid off in some areas and made a glob of strange colored seasoning. I was easily able to wipe those spots away prior to carving. Was this because I did not use fresh? Will try again. Second problem, I used thick cut pepper bacon. The flavor was amazing but the weight of the thick cut made it hard to keep the weave in place. It slid down during the 30 min roast so I took it out, re-weaved, pinned it down with tooth picks, covered and continued baking. 30 minutes prior to finish I took it out again, pulled the toothpicks, and put it back in uncovered. Now the bacon was cooked so it didn’t slide off and cooked perfectly. I think next time I will use thin cut…would work much better.
All in all I think this was GREAT. The turkey had great flavor and was very moist. Will try again with those adjustments and let you know how I do. Thanks for the recipe!
[...] Here is my turkey. Looks amazing doesn’t it. Here is the recipe for the turkey. [...]
Excellent!!!!!! I did thid for thanksgiving…and wow!!! it was fantastic!!!
[...] was able to occur. Here is some awesome preparation for the turkey (an amended recipe from the Runaway Spoon.) [...]
This is the best turkey ever…. made for thanksgiving and making for my family for xmas…. absolutely couldn’t get enough….
Love this bird !! It was amazing for thanksgiving and I know it will be great for Christmas dinner! Thank you for sharing this awesome recipe
Thank you for sharing this recipe and in such needed detail. We followed your recipe for this thanksgiving and it turned out the single tastiest turkey we have ever tried. And so incredibly photogenic! We sent pictures of the finished, blanketed bird to our family who could not be with us over Thanksgiving. When we asked them what they want for Christmas this year they said, “The Bacon Blanket Turkey!” So we are making it again.
We cooked a 14 pound bird so it required far less cooking time. Thank you for sharing!
Made this yesterday for my Christmas eve dinner and it was the best turkey I have ever eaten. I did leave the brining out since I don’t do well with salt and it was the tastiest and moistest bird I ever made. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Greetings from Norway, and thank you for providing us with this recipe, and the best new years eve turkey ever! Takk:)
Added some lemon juice to the butter btw, with great success.