Should You Wrap Turkey in Foil When Baking?

A miraculous technique for roasting turkey using aluminum foil smeared with butter to protect the breast from intense heat, while basting it. The foil is removed at the end so that the skin can crisp up. This article also has information about brining, and whether you should do it, as well as tons of tips for perfectly roasted turkey.

You probably know that my parents owned and operated restaurants when I was growing up. What you might not know is that they also did a lot of catering. We estimate that they’ve catered over a thousand turkey dinners, with each dinner requiring numerous turkeys. Their dinners have always had rave reviews, and now, I’m explaining to you my mom’s technique for perfect roasted turkey. First we’ll talk about the size of the turkey that you need, then we’ll get into the cooking technique (it involves basting and crisping the skin with butter!) that gets you perfectly cooked, juicy meat – even the breast meat is juicy!

As a general rule, 1 and 1/2 pounds of bone-in turkey will feed one person and provide leftovers. If you are not a leftover family, 1 pound of bone-in turkey will be your mathematical formula. If you will be having a lot of side dishes, you can go with even less, around 3/4 of a pound. This is especially true if you’ll be having appetizers and munchies set out before dinner, and dessert afterwards.

When it comes to choosing your turkey, The Kitchn has a wonderful resource that addresses budget, fresh vs. frozen, and how to identify the different types of turkeys and how they are raised. I will say though, that my parents were buying turkeys in bulk for dinners and weren’t getting anything fancy. So, if you just go into your grocery store and buy one of the turkeys there, you’ll be just fine. With the method below, nothing fancy is required!

Instructions For Roasting Turkey

Take your turkey out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking it so that it isn’t as cold and will cook more evenly. If you have not brined your turkey at all, simply remove all the packaging and pat it dry with paper towels. Don’t rinse it off since that only sprays potential bacteria around your kitchen. If you wet-brined your turkey, also just pat it dry, no need to rinse it. If you dry-brined your turkey, don’t do anything. I know the picture above looks like there’s lots of seasoning about to fall off, but that was the beginning of the process. By then end, it’s the finest of layers and you want to leave it on there.

If your turkey has giblets inside, you can do one of three things:

1) You can discard them;

2) You can use them to make a turkey broth that you use to supplement your drippings when making gravy. This is a great idea if you’re brining the turkey since your drippings might end up too salty, and then you’ll have this broth to use instead. To do this, put the giblets (removed from any packaging) into a medium saucepan. You can also trim away any excess fat or skin from the turkey and add that, and even include the wing tips since they often get too dark from roasting and don’t have much meat on them anyhow. Add enough water to the sauce pan to only just cover the meat you have in there, less is more in this case, since less water means the flavor will be less diluted. You can add all or any of some fresh herbs (like sage, thyme, rosemary), dried herbs or poultry seasoning, raw onion, garlic cloves, carrots, and celery. For the onion, garlic, you can leave the peels on, and there not need to peel the carrots or trim the celery. Just give everything a good rinse. Don’t add salt because that will make it harder to get your gravy seasoning right later. Give it all a stir, some items might be sticking out and that’s actually ideal. Bring the pot to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally, and then reduce it to a simmer. Let it sit there simmering for 30 minutes to an hour, stirring every now and then. Remove from the heat and strain away the aromatic pieces. Those can be discarded so that all is left is the broth.

3) Add them to the roasting pan, putting them around the turkey as it roasts. This will add extra flavor to your gravy. Mush them up a bit right before making the gravy, and then they’ll get strained away and discarded before you serve the gravy.

Step #3: Season And Butter The Turkey

Next you’ll be seasoning liberally with salt and pepper, all over. But, there’s no seasoning in the below picture because this turkey was brined. If you have brined your turkey, don’t add anything to it here.

Brined or not, what you’re going to do is to take a big piece of aluminum foil. You’ll want a piece bigger than in the below picture. Let me explain. When I was taking these pictures, I misremembered how my mom did it and thought she only covered the breast meat with foil. She has since told me that I was wrong. So, get a piece of foil big enough to cover the entire bird, two overlapping pieces is fine if needed. Then smear one side of the foil with a lot of softened butter or margarine. You want a good cup (that’s two sticks) of butter spread on there.

Note, I think it’s best to use unsalted butter, especially if you’ve brined the turkey. Or just keep in mind that there’s salt in your butter when you’re seasoning the turkey. If you want to take this whole butter thing to another level, you can add flavors to the butter before putting it onto the foil. This is my recipe for Compound Butter for Turkey. It can be used on the foil before roasting, or you can dot fully-cooked sliced turkey with little bits of it to add buttery flavor at the end.

Then, take that foil and put it butter side down onto the turkey. Press the foil against the turkey skin so that it’s making contact all over. This foil is going to protect the breast meat from drying out, and is also going to keep delicious butter against the turkey for a lot of the cooking process. It’s also going to drip down into the roasting pan giving you delicious basting juices, and delicious drippings for your gravy.

Should I cover the turkey with foil while it cooks in the oven?