You spend the entire day preparing and cooking the turkey. You may end up ready to serve hours before feast time and guests arrive. So, you’re left wondering how to keep a turkey warm.
Thanksgiving dinner is a staple in almost every household. Usually, the star of that dinner is a warm, juicy turkey that we are all craving. You’ve spent all month planning your menu, determining how big of a turkey to cook, how long it will take to cook the bird and making sure your guests will be entertained and your table set beautifully.
There are many ways to maintain the temperature of a turkey for a while. Let’s take a look at how to keep your turkey toasty and the factors that affect the process.
Cooking a juicy, tender turkey is a labor of love. After hours of preparation, seasoning, stuffing, and roasting, the last thing you want is for your beautiful bird to end up cold and dried out before it hits the table
Luckily, with some simple tricks, you can keep your turkey piping hot and irresistibly moist for hours after it comes out of the oven. Follow these tips and your guests will be raving about the most succulent, melt-in-your-mouth turkey they’ve ever tasted.
Rest and Cover the Turkey Right After Cooking
Once your turkey reaches the perfect internal temperature of 165°F, resist the urge to immediately start carving Instead, let it rest right in the roasting pan for 15-20 minutes This allows the juices to redistribute throughout the meat.
After the rest, tent the turkey with a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Make sure to wrap it up tightly so no steam can escape. The foil will trap in heat and moisture
For extra insulation, wrap a clean kitchen towel over the foil. Your turkey will stay hot for a good 2 hours using this simple technique.
Hold the Turkey in a Low Oven
If your oven isn’t stuffed full of other dishes, or if you are one of the lucky folks who have a spare oven, then you can hold the turkey there at 200°F, although you should cover the bird to make sure it doesn’t dry out.
For added moisture, place a rimmed baking sheet filled with 1-inch of hot water on the oven rack below the turkey. The evaporating water will keep things steamy. With this method, you can easily maintain temperature for 3-4 hours.
Use a Roasting Pan for Maximum Juiciness
For extended hold times, do not rely solely on foil. Instead, place the cooked turkey back in the roasting pan used to cook it. Add 1-2 cups of homemade turkey stock or chicken broth to the pan.
Tightly cover the pan with a lid or heavy-duty foil. Place in a 200-225°F oven. The hot liquid in the covered pan will create a steamy environment that will keep the turkey incredibly moist for 4 hours or more.
Opt for a Crockpot
A slow cooker is the perfect appliance for keeping already cooked turkey warm and delicious for hours on end. Simply transfer your roasted turkey to the slow cooker stoneware, add 1 cup broth, gravy, or water to the insert.
Cover and cook on low for 2-3 hours until ready to serve. Switch to warm setting to hold the turkey for up to 4 hours. The slow, moist heat ensures incredibly tender and juicy meat.
Warm it Up in Gravy
Cut your turkey and submerge the pieces in piping hot homemade gravy or broth right before serving. Place the turkey and gravy back in the oven at 350°F just until warmed through, about 10-15 minutes. The simmering gravy bastes the meat and ensures a hot and luscious meal.
Spatchcock the Bird for Quicker Cooking
Spatchcocking, or butterflying, your turkey helps it cook more quickly and evenly. Remove the backbone and flatten the bird before roasting. A spatchcocked 10-12 lb turkey cooks in about 1 1⁄2 hours at 450°F. With the faster cook time, you can roast your turkey closer to dinner time.
Mind Food Safety
When holding cooked turkey for any length of time, food safety is crucial. Cooked poultry left between 40-140°F for more than 2 hours enters the “danger zone” where bacteria can multiply quickly.
Be diligent and use a food thermometer to ensure your held turkey does not dip below 140°F. Discard any turkey left out more than 2 hours. When in doubt, throw it out!
Relax and Enjoy Your Feast
Preparing the holiday turkey is a labor of love. With some simple tricks like tenting with foil and holding in gentle oven heat, you can relax knowing your gorgeous, glistening bird will be mouthwateringly delicious for your entire feast.
Focus on creating cherished memories and leave the temperature regulation to these handy turkey-holding tips. Here’s to a beautiful bird at the center of a holiday table surrounded by family and friends!
The Method of Cooking
Another factor that plays a major role in turkey temperature is the cooking method. Depending on how you cook the bird, it’ll cool down at different rates.
This is because each cooking method uses a slightly different temperature.
- Roasting: 350°F
- Deep frying: 320°F
- Smoking: 140°F
- Sous vide: 152°F
As you can guess, if you cook your bird at a higher temperature, it can stay warm for longer. That’s due to the turkey storing more heat energy while it cooks. However, this may lead to your bird drying out. So, don’t use more heat than required for a particular cooking method.
We celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November. For many people, this kicks off the holiday season.
However, as the holidays roll in, so does winter. This is about the time when everything starts to get colder.
The temperature of your home will affect the rate that the turkey cools down, but most folks keep their house around 70°F, so unless you are eating it outside in the cool weather, or you live in the warm south, this won’t be a major factor.
Finally, post-cooking time is the most important factor in keeping a turkey warm. So how long does the turkey sit around before its carving time?
Generally, you want to let your turkey rest after cooking. This allows for all the juices to resettle throughout the bird. About 15-30 minutes should do the trick. During this time, the turkey holds on to most of the heat inside it.
At this point, the turkey is moist, soft, and ready for carving.
After that, the turkey starts to cool off, and within a couple of hours, the bird reaches room temperature.
It’s important to note that, as a matter of safety, you shouldn’t let your turkey sit for too long out of a refrigerator. Letting the bird spend more than two hours at room temperature can be hazardous. That’s when microorganisms can start growing.
Methods to Keep a Turkey Warm
Keeping a turkey warm can a tricky ordeal, but we’ll help you out. You want to keep adding heat without drying out the meat.
Here’s our favorite ways to maintain your turkey’s temperature.
The most common method of keeping a turkey warm is wrapping it up with foil. Not only is this process fairly simple, but it’s also quite effective.
You can follow these steps to use this method:
- Take your turkey out of the oven.
- Let it rest for about 15-30 minutes.
- Drain any excess juices from the pan.
- Cover the whole turkey in aluminum foil.
- Place a warm kitchen towel over the foil.
- Set the turkey down in a warm area.
Pro: This method can help keep your bird warm for an extra couple of hours. It uses the residual heat and steam trapped in the bird to keep it toasty.
Con: This isn’t the ideal method for you if you like crispy skin. Because you trap steam in with the turkey, the skin starts to soften.
Removing excess juices helps reduce this issue, but it will cause the skin to lose its crispiness.
How to Reheat a Fully Roasted Turkey | Step by Step
FAQ
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