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 turkey is often the centerpiece of holiday meals and special gatherings After spending hours preparing, seasoning, stuffing, and roasting your bird to perfection, you want to make sure it stays hot and delicious until serving time. But delays happen and guests run late. So how long can you safely hold a cooked turkey and keep it piping hot for your event?
There are several effective methods to keep your turkey warm for 1-4 hours after cooking, depending on your needs. But according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), you should never leave turkey sitting out at room temperature for longer than 2 hours (or only 1 hour if above 90°F). After this time, bacteria can grow rapidly and make your food unsafe to eat.
Here are 6 handy tips to keep your turkey warm and delicious until mealtime
1. Tent the Turkey with Foil
Tenting your cooked turkey with a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil is a simple way to trap in heat and moisture. This works best if you need to hold the turkey for 30 minutes up to 2 hours after cooking.
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After roasting let the turkey rest for at least 5 minutes before tenting it. This allows the juices to redistribute.
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Cover the entire turkey tightly with foil. Make sure there are no air gaps.
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For extra insulation, wrap foil-covered turkey with a large kitchen towel.
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Keep turkey in the roasting pan to prevent spills and leaks.
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You can also use this method for other meats like chicken.
2. Keep Turkey in a Warm Oven
Your oven can safely hold your cooked turkey for 2-3 hours after cooking. This works well if your bird finished roasting earlier than planned.
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Cover turkey tightly in foil before placing it back in the oven.
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Set oven temperature between 200-225°F.
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To prevent drying, place a pan of water under the turkey to create steam. This keeps the meat moist for up to 2 hours.
3. Use a Crockpot or Slow Cooker
Slow cookers are very forgiving when you need to keep food warm for an extended time. A large crockpot can hold your cooked turkey for 3-4 hours.
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Place cooked turkey in crockpot and add pan juices or broth.
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Cook on LOW for 2 hours, then switch to WARM setting.
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You can also cook the raw turkey in the crockpot, then hold it on WARM when ready.
4. Transfer Turkey to a Chafing Dish
Chafing dishes with burners are ideal for keeping cooked, carved turkey warm before serving.
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Turkey stays safe in a chafing dish as long as the temperature stays above 145°F.
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Cover chafing dish when not actively serving to retain heat.
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Allow up to 4 hours holding time before turkey dries out.
5. Serve Turkey with Hot Gravy
Pouring hot gravy over sliced turkey can reheat it when ready to serve. But don’t leave turkey sitting out too long.
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Make gravy using pan drippings, broth, seasonings.
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Heat gravy until simmering before pouring over turkey slices.
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Keep turkey no longer than 2 hours at room temp before refrigerating.
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Reheat turkey in very hot oven (425-450°F) just before serving.
6. Try Spatchcocking Your Turkey
Spatchcocking (removing backbone and flattening) speeds up cooking time while keeping turkey incredibly moist and flavorful.
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Spatchcocking cuts roasting time nearly in half.
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Turkey cooks faster and more evenly when flattened.
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Juicier breast meat and crispy skin.
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Avoid overcooking white meat while legs and thighs finish cooking.
The bottom line is you should never keep cooked turkey at room temperature for longer than 2 hours before refrigerating or freezing. After this point, bacteria can multiply quickly and make food unsafe to eat. Always err on the side of caution when handling perishable foods like turkey.
With some strategic planning and these handy tips, you can keep your holiday turkey or any cooked bird hot, delicious, and safe to serve for your guests to enjoy. The important things are controlling temperature and not allowing too much time to pass before eating or storing leftovers.
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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.
️ Perfect Turkey Temperature
There are many debates about how you should cook your turkey. Some people like to deep fry the bird, while others like to grill or smoke it.
However, the most common method is low-and-slow baking. This is when you place your turkey in the oven at about 325-350°F and let it cook for several hours.
The reason why this method is so popular is that it produces a moist, perfectly cooked turkey.
Even though we cook the turkey at 350°F, we don’t expect it to reach that internal temperature.
You want your turkey breast to hit 170°F and the thighs to reach 180°F. Anything higher than that can cause the meat to dry out and overcook. Check out Butterball’s temperature guide.
How do you keep turkey warm when done too early?
FAQ
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