Super-Fast Roast Turkey Recipe

Photo: Tyler Florence

Super-Fast Roast Turkey
Serves 10 to 12

The Thanksgiving turkey is the centerpiece of the meal, but, despite its being cooked every year for generations, it still causes anxiety. The annual conundrum? Getting a flavorful turkey that also looks good—and the rest of dinner—on the table before the grandparents fall asleep. The first thing we realized was that stuffing the turkey only makes things harder: if you stuff your turkey, you create a very dense material for heat to travel through, and by the time the stuffing is hot in the center, the breast meat of the turkey is totally overcooked. Instead, we piped the stuffing between the skin and the breast. That way, you still get flavorful stuffing while protecting the breast.

We also spatchcocked the turkey. Before you turn and run, let me tell you that it shaved off an hour and 15 minutes of cooking time from the standard Butterball turkey instructions. Spatchcocking simply means removing the backbone, increasing the bird’s surface area, and letting the oven’s heat into the cavity much faster. This allows the turkey to cook in way less time than traditional recipes and keeps it juicy. You’ll notice that we didn’t brine the bird: we found that spatchcocking gave us a juicy and tender bird without brining, which was great, since most people don’t have refrigerator space for an entire turkey in a brine bucket.

You can have your butcher spatchcock the turkey if you’d like; just ask for the backbone if you make our Thanksgiving Gravy.

One (10-pound) turkey
1 recipe Test Kitchen Stuffing (recipe below) in a piping bag or zip-top plastic bag with a corner snipped off
Grapeseed or vegetable oil, as needed
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch of sage
1 bunch of thyme

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Remove the heart and giblets and reserve; discard the liver. Flip the turkey upside down so the breast is on your cutting board. Using kitchen shears, cut on both sides of the backbone so the bone can be removed. Pull the bone out of the turkey and reserve. Gently but firmly open up the bird a little (you can flatten it if you’d like) and set it on your board with the skin side up.

Insert your fingers gently between the skin and breast meat, separating the two while keeping the skin attached. You want to create a pocket for the stuffing without tearing the skin.

Pipe the stuffing underneath the skin of the bird, creating a layer between the meat and the skin. Rub grapeseed oil over the skin, and season liberally with salt and pepper. Do the same to the underside of the bird.

Place a large rack on a roasting pan or sheet pan, and put the whole sprigs of herbs on top of the rack. Put the turkey skin side up on top of the herbs. Sandwiching the herbs between the rack and the turkey will prevent them from burning. Put the turkey in the oven and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At this point, the skin should be golden brown and the temperature should be 135°F. To take the temperature, insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh, staying away from hitting the bone. Tent the turkey with tin foil and continue to roast until the temperature reaches 160°F in the leg, about another 30 minutes. (The internal temperature will continue to rise as it rests.) Remove the turkey and let it rest for 15 minutes before slicing.

Test Kitchen Stuffing
Makes enough to stuff 1 turkey

People love the taste of stuffing that’s been cooked in the turkey, but usually by the time the stuffing is ready, the bird is overcooked. To combat this problem, and to keep our turkey juicy, we piped the stuffing under the skin instead of filling the cavity. You’ll get incredibly flavorful stuffing without overcooked turkey. If you really love stuffing, you can double the recipe and bake half in the oven rather than piping it into the bird.

4 cups of sourdough bread torn into 1-inch pieces, without the crusts
2 tablespoons grapeseed or vegetable oil
1?2 pound sage breakfast sausage, crumbled
1?2 cup diced carrots
1?2 cup diced celery
1?2 cup diced onion
5 sage leaves
3 thyme sprigs
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2?3 cup chicken stock
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Toast the bread on a sheet pan in the oven for about 15 minutes, until crisp and golden.

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large saucepan, then add the sausage and let it brown. After it’s nice and golden on one side, stir to get color all over. Add the carrots, celery, and onion, followed by the sage and thyme, turn the heat down to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally to keep the cooking even. Season with salt and pepper.

When the vegetables are aromatic and tender, add a splash of water if necessary to loosen the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the toasted bread and the chicken stock and mix.

Remove the thyme sprigs and pull the leaves off, adding the leaves back to the stuffing, and then transfer the stuffing to a food processor.

Process until fairly smooth, adding the egg while pureeing. (If you’re doubling the recipe for extra stuffing, puree only half the stuffing; the rest you can bake as directed below.)

Transfer the stuffing to a piping bag (or a large zip-top bag with a corner snipped off).

If you would like to have the stuffing as a stand-alone dish, skip the pureeing. Transfer the stuffing mixture to a greased baking dish and cook in a 350°F oven until the top is golden brown.

Excerpted from Inside the Test Kitchen: 120 New Recipes, Perfected by Tyler Florence (Clarkson Potter, 2014).

More turkey talk:
Your Thanksgiving Turkey: To Brine or Not to Brine?
Thanksgiving Showdown: Who Has the Best Turkey Recipe? 
How to Get the Crispiest Roast Turkey Skin