and no basting required!
- You still have to cook the turkey as normal
1 Take out a spoon, cup, or bulb baster. A bulb baster is a special rubber tool to suck up and pour out liquids. Its like a large, soft syringe. If you dont have one, a spoon or cup will work just as well.
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2 Baste your turkey. Take some of the liquid you prepared for basting and pour it gently all over the surface, using your spoon, cup, or bulb baster. Use any kind of stock, wine, butter, oils, gravy, or juices. The idea is to keep the turkey meat moist.[2]
- Its easiest to use the juices at the bottom. However, if you have a recipe for an herb butter, a marinade, or a gravy, thats great, too.
- 3 Put the lid or tent cover back on, and put the turkey back in to roast. Reset the timer for 30 minutes. Go watch an episode of your favorite TV show or pick up a book, but dont go too far away!
- 4 Repeat this process of checking and basting with your reserved liquid every 30 minutes. Soon, once again, you will have liquid on the bottom of the pan. Now use that instead of any liquid from a bowl. Whether you used the original meat juices or something else, it is now at the bottom of the pan, infused with meat juices, ready to be reused again.
- 5 Remove extra liquid if the juices touch the bottom of the turkey. Dont let the turkey stew in juices. This will make the meat soft instead of giving it that golden outside, crispy rind.
- This is why a small rack in the roasting pan is best. With a rack, it stays out of all the juices.
- 6 But keep the juices! Use some of the juices as a gravy base, or pour some into a bowl for table dressing over stuffing, vegetables, potatoes, etc. Dont let it go to waste! That juice has been stewing for hours with delicious turkey juices.
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Using Basting Alternatives
- 1 Make a foil tent. Many people choose to forgo the basting entirely and instead wrap the turkey in a foil tent – basically just a layer of aluminum foil loosely over the turkey. This keeps the juices in, serving the same purpose as the basting.
- This is more convenient in that once the foil is placed, you can set it and forget it, instead of going into the kitchen every half hour for maintenance.
- 2 Spray with apple juice. Instead of getting into the pan and dealing with hard-to-get-to juices or melting butter and herbs and getting sticky, just spray the turkey with apple juice! If you have a spray bottle, its incredibly convenient.
- Of course, you could always infuse the apply juice with honey, herbs, butter, or anything else you can imagine for a more savory touch.
- 3 Use bacon. Want to put a trendy take on your turkey? Whats better than bacon? Fry up some bacon, add in some paprika, garlic, or maybe some onion, and keep the juices. Set the bacon aside on paper towels to dry. Then pour the bacon juices all over the turkey.
- When the turkey is near done, chop up the bacon and sprinkle it over the turkey.[3]
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4 Know that you dont need basting for a brined turkey. A brined turkey is one that is kept in a large bucket or cooler for around 12 hours with a mixture of water
honey
and other additives. Its a great way to ensure that your turkey stays incredibly moist
and using a foil tent is a good idea. Some people choose to use wood chips on the bottom of the pan to give it a roasted hickory taste. If this sounds interesting