The Best Turkey Fryers for a Perfectly Fried Bird This Thanksgiving

Rose Maura Lorre is a writer on Wirecutter’s discovery team. She has reported on turkey fryers, composters, body pillows, and more.

New York Times food correspondent Kim Severson has covered Thanksgiving from every angle, reporting, with healthy skepticism, on America’s never-ending litany of turkey-cooking fads and fails. Wet brining, dry brining, turkey in a bag, turkey in a T-shirt—the Pulitzer Prize winner has seen, tried, and largely discredited them all.

Deep-frying a turkey may sound like another gastronomic gimmick, but in Severson’s experience, it’s vastly preferable to roasting. “I don’t feel this is stunt food,” she said in a Zoom interview. “From a culinary standpoint, from a deliciousness standpoint, I think the fried turkey is superior. It is so unctuous and delicious and moist. So that’s number one.”

Not only can she persuasively explain why you should deep-fry your Thanksgiving turkey, but she can also lay out a convincing case as to why one fryer in particular, the King Kooker Outdoor Deep Frying/Boiling Package, is the best outdoor turkey deep fryer you can buy.

This sturdy setup comes with everything you need to fry a turkey and more (or do a big seafood boil). And it has a couple of nice safety features, such as a shutoff timer and a pronged turkey holder that keeps your bird stable.

It’s the fryer she’s about to use for her third consecutive Thanksgiving, and the one she fried another dozen-ish turkeys in this past summer while researching her piece for NYT Cooking’s Thanksgiving collection.

The King Kooker is also the outdoor deep fryer that was recommended to her by an authoritative source: a former food editor at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the first major publication to report on deep-frying turkeys (which was originally, and not surprisingly, a Cajun thing) in the 1980s. That editor told Severson that the King Kooker “is the one we all buy and love.”

All outdoor deep fryers seem basically the same: A tall stock pot sits atop a propane burner attached to a metal stand that keeps everything safely above ground. Makes and models vary.

Severson prefers her King Kooker’s lightweight aluminum pot to other, potentially pricier stainless steel versions. “This is not something you’re going to use all the time. A slightly higher-grade pot, in my opinion, is really not worth the extra money,” she said. “It’s overkill for what you’re going to be cooking.”

The stand is where heftiness matters more. “That is a key thing; you want a really sturdy stand,” she said. The King Kooker stand is fashioned from welded steel, which makes it more durable than stands that have been screwed together with nuts and bolts. “This is one solid piece of heavy metal that’s all soldered,” said Severson, who uses her fryer atop loose gravel in her backyard. “It’s not bolted together with thinner legs. It’s just a bear. It’s just a beast. It’s super heavy-duty.”

Deep fryers have a reputation as fire hazards in the making, for several reasons. Some are due to human error, while others are due to subpar manufacturing, such as those aforementioned stand issues, which could make a fryer prone to tipping over.

Norman R. Bourgeois Jr., president of King Kooker’s parent company, said in a phone interview that “CSA Design Certified” means a fryer has been tested for factors such as how much load it can handle, how hot its side walls and the surface below can get, how well it stands up to windy conditions, and more. He also told us that some brands may label their fryers as having CSA-certified parts, such as the propane hose and regulator, but that it doesn’t necessarily mean the entire unit is certified.

One of Severson’s favorite safety features on her fryer, in fact, is the mechanism that adjusts the flow of propane to the burner. She uses it to easily cut the propane as a safety precaution when pulling out the turkey to check its temperature. “If you’re going to get into trouble frying a turkey, it’s when oil spills onto an open propane flame,” she said.

While all fryers have some kind of manual propane shutoff, the King Kooker model is also outfitted with a battery-operated timer that automatically turns off the propane every 15 minutes, unless the user overrides it by pressing a button.

Bourgeois told us that this extra feature, which is found on models from some but not all fryer brands, is designed to make sure the fryer doesn’t overheat, even if left unattended. (Do not ever leave a deep fryer unattended, ever.) To remind owners about the override feature, a light starts blinking on the timer device when five minutes are left on the 15-minute cycle, and then it starts blinking faster at two minutes.

Marguerite Preston, the senior editor in charge of Wirecutter’s kitchen coverage, said that the King Kooker instruction manual (PDF) is quite thorough, and “reading it carefully should equip you to fry safely.”

A sturdier perch for your bird

Typically, you place a turkey into an outdoor deep fryer by first fitting it onto a metal rod with a circular baseplate on the bottom. The rod goes through the turkey’s cavity, allowing the bird to sit upright on the plate as you lower it into the pot.

The King Kooker, however, swaps out the plate for a three-pronged hook that sinks its tines into the meat and, in Severson’s opinion, keeps it more secure. “The plate, depending on how big your turkey is, doesn’t allow the turkey to sit flat,” she explains. “The hook, no matter what size your turkey is, holds it really solid when your turkey goes in and out of the thing.” After all, when you’re trying to stab a meat thermometer into a turkey breast that’s dangling over a pot of boiling oil, everything ought to feel as stable as possible.

Multiple uses, but no frills

A definite drawback to an appliance like a turkey deep fryer is that it may seem like too big of a contraption to keep around if you use it only once a year—which is why Severson appreciates that the King Kooker Outdoor Deep Frying/Boiling Package comes with two stock-pot and fryer/steamer basket combos of varying depths that allow for more culinary versatility.

By filling the larger stock pot with water instead of oil and placing the deeper basket inside it, Severson said, you can prepare all the fixings for a Cajun or low-country boil. (Marguerite noted that it would also work for a big lobster or crab boil.) The shallower pan and basket, meanwhile, are ideal for doing a fish fry or for whipping up a big batch of wings ahead of, say, Super Bowl Sunday. The fry pan and basket are outfitted with insulated, heat-resistant handles to make them easier to work with, since they’re shallower and therefore sit closer to the burner.

What the King Kooker package doesn’t come with are extra accessories that, according to Severson, won’t actually help you fry better-tasting fowl, although the brand does sell such add-ons separately. “A lot of [deep fryers] have extraneous stuff that you don’t need, like flavor injectors,” she said. “You don’t need to inject your turkey with anything for flavor, because it’s going to taste like turkey. It doesn’t matter.”

Similarly, some fryers deliver more power than you need, as high as 54,000 Btu. The King Kooker’s burner cranks up to 33,000 Btu—which, as Severson can attest, is plenty. “It’s just so hot and banging and heats up your oil pretty quickly,” she said.

Top 8 Best Turkey Fryer In 2023: Which One To Get?

FAQ

Are turkey fryers worth it?

What size turkey fryer for 20 lb turkey?

Is aluminum or stainless steel better for turkey fryers?

What is the best turkey fryer?

As our best overall turkey fryer, the Bayou Classic Turkey Fryer is great for cooking up a feast or hosting a gathering. Known as the Grand Gobbler, this turkey fryer is specifically designed to cook extra-large turkeys of up to 25 pounds. And with a capacity of up to 44 quarts, can even fit two turkeys to cook at once.

Are airfryers healthy?

Air fryers should be used sparingly, as very high temperatures when cooking food – especially those rich in starch, such as potatoes, cassava and other roots – can produce a chemical called acrylamide, which is harmful to the human body and has carcinogenic potential.

Are turkey deep fryers good?

Bear in mind, the best turkey deep fryers are more suitable for large-sized poultry, so probably not ideal for smaller portions. Also, what type of power do you prefer? Typically, the best turkey fryers work from propane, but there are electric models available. This will depend on the size of your outdoor space and needs.

What are the different types of turkey fryers?

There are three primary types of turkey fryers. The most common are propane fryers, which run on propane gas. The second type is an oil-less fryer that uses infrared heat technology rather than oil to cook, but also runs on propane gas. The third type of fryer is electric and can be used indoors as well as outdoors.