Some recipes for mayo-roasted turkey promise extra-juicy results with minimal effort. This one does no such thing. The mayonnaise won’t help the turkey stay juicy: Only salting and resting (a light curing process known colloquially as dry-brining) and carefully monitoring its internal temperature as it roasts will. The mayonnaise will, however, produce a turkey with glistening, burnished, golden-brown skin evenly flavored with herbs, no basting required. The mayo’s viscosity helps it stay in place as it roasts, while the extra protein from egg aids in browning. This recipe will make a little more mayonnaise than you’ll need. Use the excess for leftovers sandwiches, or toss it with roughly chopped vegetables (carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, zucchini or squash) before roasting at high heat for 10 to 15 minutes.
Featured in: The Secret to Great Thanksgiving Turkey Is Already in Your Fridge
As Thanksgiving approaches, many home cooks start searching for the perfect turkey recipe. One name that often comes up is J. Kenji López-Alt, the Chief Culinary Consultant at Serious Eats. Kenji is renowned for his obsessive testing and scientific approach to cooking, especially when it comes to holiday centerpieces like turkey. I decided to take a deep dive into Kenji’s various turkey recipes and techniques to provide the ultimate guide to achieving turkey perfection à la Kenji this Thanksgiving.
For those unfamiliar, Kenji López-Alt worked for years as the Managing Culinary Director at Serious Eats before leaving in 2020 to pursue other projects He is the author of the bestselling book The Food Lab, where he uses his background in physics to explore the science behind cooking Kenji takes a meticulous, methodical approach to his recipes, often testing a single recipe dozens of times to perfect it. While his recipes may look complicated at first glance, he aims to find easier and more foolproof methods by thoroughly understanding the food science at work.
Kenji has become especially known for his turkey recipes around Thanksgiving when most home cooks struggle to nail the perfect roast turkey. Many of his unconventional turkey techniques have become staples that Serious Eats continues to recommend.
Spatchcocking – Kenji’s Top Turkey Method
Kenji’s favorite technique for roast turkey is spatchcocking, or butterflying the turkey. He recommends spatchcocking as “the fastest and easiest way to get a crisp, juicy bird on the table.” Spatchcocking allows the turkey to cook more evenly since the breast and legs are flattened at the same level. The flattened shape also promotes crispy skin by maximizing air circulation around the bird. Despite its unconventional look, a spatchcocked turkey roasts much faster than an intact bird and produces incredibly juicy meat with crackling crisp skin.
For step-by-step instructions on spatchcocking and roasting your turkey, check out Kenji’s guide here.
Roast Turkey Tips and Techniques from Kenji
However, Kenji realizes some people may still prefer roasting a traditional whole turkey for presentation purposes. Through his testing over the years, Kenji determined several key tips and tricks for achieving the perfect roast whole turkey:
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Cook at a high temperature – Cook the turkey at temperatures between 300°F and 350°F to ensure crispy skin. Contrary to popular belief, high heat will not dry out the meat if properly prepped
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Avoid roasting pans – Roasting pans shield the bottom of the turkey, leading to soggy skin. Use a rimmed baking sheet and wire rack instead.
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Preheat a baking steel – Preheating a baking steel or stone helps direct heat toward the legs and back of the turkey, ensuring even cooking.
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Dry brine – Rubbing the turkey with salt and letting it rest overnight improves moisture and flavor.
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Use a thermometer – An instant read thermometer takes the guesswork out of determining doneness. Cook the breast to 150°F and legs to 165°F.
For Kenji’s full step-by-step guide to roasting the perfect whole turkey, see his recipe here.
Wet Brining vs Dry Brining Turkey
One topic Kenji has done extensive testing on is wet brining vs dry brining turkeys. Many recipes call for submerging the raw turkey in a saltwater solution overnight before cooking. However, Kenji found through side-by-side testing that dry brining (rubbing the turkey with salt and letting it rest uncovered in the fridge) produced meat that was just as moist and seasoned, with the benefit of faster cooking times and crisper skin.
According to his testing, wet brining causes the turkey meat to absorb extra water, making it take longer to cook and resulting in soggy skin. Dry brining allows the salt to dissolve some of the muscle proteins, allowing the turkey to retain moisture better during roasting. So skip the messy wet brine and opt for the easier and superior dry brine method!
Roasting Turkey Pieces
While Kenji is best known for his whole turkey recipes, he offers an alternative method of roasting the entire bird in parts. By separating the legs and wings, the white and dark meat can be roasted at different temperatures optimized for each cut. The breast is roasted at a lower temperature to prevent drying out, while the legs get blasted at a higher heat to render the fat and collagen.
Roasting in parts requires more prep work upfront, but provides the best results in terms of perfectly cooked meat. The smaller pieces also cook much faster than a whole bird. See Kenji’s step-by-step instructions for roasting turkey in parts here.
Deep Fried Turkey à la Kenji
Believe it or not, Kenji has a recipe for deep fried turkey as well! When done properly, deep frying results in incredibly moist, tender meat with an impossibly crispy skin. However, hot oil and a giant turkey make this cooking method inherently dangerous.
Kenji’s method calls for frying just the leg quarters rather than the entire bird, minimizing risk while still producing phenomenally juicy and crispy turkey meat. He provides a step-by-step guide for safely frying turkey legs here.
While there are many ways to cook a turkey, J. Kenji López-Alt has spent years testing and perfecting what he believes to be the best methods for roast turkey. From spatchcocking to dry brining to roasting in parts, Kenji’s turkey recipes produce crisp skin, outrageously juicy meat, and full flavor. By applying his scientific understanding of turkey cookery, Kenji cuts through conventional wisdom to develop easier, fail-proof techniques with foolproof results. This Thanksgiving, take your turkey game to the next level by employing one of Kenji’s tried and true turkey recipes. Your taste buds will thank you!
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Doesnt leaving the dry brine on the turkey while cooking cause it to be too salty? Should we wipe down or rinse it before applying the herb mayonnaise?
Another tip: if you plan to insert a probe to monitor the birds temperature, insert it into the thickest part of the breast, instead of the thigh as you normally would. Spatchcoking makes the breast the thickest part of the bird, and I have found it takes longer for the breast to reach done-ness than the thigh.
Spring-loaded poultry shears make short work of taking out that backbone. I made sure that I purchased poultry shears that come apart for thorough cleaning.
If you prefer Indian flavors in your turkey, then replace the flavorings in the mayo with an Indian masala. We prefer the Aachi brand these days, and the tandoori or the meat masala works well. Kenjis spatchcocked brined technique with the Indian mayo has been our go to technique for poultry, and it gets consistent rave reviews. If you like, you can add minced garlic and ginger into the mayo-masala for complexity.
All good. But Id use Dukes mayo, or make my own from 3 egg yolks and a C of olive oil. Since Ive experienced these aiolliscious wonders, Hellmanns and Best Foods are huge disappointments. If youre so unlucky to not have Dukes in your area (I guess its a Southern thing) make homemade. There are dozens of videos online showing how to do it with an immersion blender. Surprisingly easy and satisfying. Side note: spell check did not balk at “aiolliscious!” Who knew!
Roasting chicken with a mayo-based marinade has changed my life – I recommend to all my friends and I am so excited to try this version with turkey. NO you cannot taste or detect any degree of mayo after roasting (or cooking on a pan). It tastes like oil or butter in the best way. Mayo is the best hack for super juicy, perfectly browned, flavorful meat, especially when you have very little time to marinate!
If youre like me and likely to use your hands to spread the mayo on the bird, saving extra mayo for sandwiches might not be a good idea. Id take a spoonful out and reserve it first to avoid a salmonella sandwich.
Where are the directions for spatchcocking the turkey?
I’ve been dry brining my turkeys and chickens for several years. I wouldn’t do them any other way. I do rinse them and dry well before the slathering commences. Make ahead gravy……it’s not only better as the flavors meld it also makes the day a lot less stressful.
It needs to be said that dry brining should NOT be used on a supermarket turkey that has been injected with a salt-based solution, as most of these turkeys (Butterball, etc.) are. I have used this method — both splatchcocked and roasted whole on a large baking stone. The results are as phenomenal as Kenji promises!
Loosening the skin is a key step– it creates a very thin gap between the flesh and skin, allowing the skin to crisp better.
I have my butcher do the spatchcocking. Life can be easy!
If using a kosher bird skip the dry-brining as it has already been salted.
The article that accompanies this recipe is the best explanation of how and why brining works, bar none. He explains the science in very clear, understandable language, without dumbing it down. Thank you for this article and recipe!
Made this for a Friendsgiving this weekend. Several guests said it was the best Turkey they tasted in their life! Not sure how this is only rated 4 stars by many… super easy, flavorful and moist. Due to timing I brined it about 30 hrs before and put the mayo on 6 or so hours before cooking. My 15 lb Turkey took about 1hr 45 mins to cook. This will likely be my go to recipe for years to come!
This recipe was excellent. Since making it for my extended family, I have been nominated to be the “turkey guy” for all family events going forward!
A big oily mess to handle and carve once cooked. Flavor was good however!
Quick-text: 12lb at 405 for 40, flip, 400 for 40. Still not ‘done’ even at temp. Samples very salty. Flip. Return to oven at 385 for 25. Texture was great, saltiness was reduced, everything felt and tasted done.
When it says to rotate half way through cooking g, does that mean to turn over so skin side is up or just rotate the roasting pan ?
I followed this exactly as written for using a regular 14 lb. supermarket turkey (pre-brined, but I still salted mine anyway) and it was fine, nothing special, but definitely not bad. I felt like the herb mayo didnt really make a huge difference, although the reserved portion was great on sandwiches later. I will probably try a new turkey recipe next year, something with a little more oomph.
Have roasted spatchcocked turkeys many times, this year was the first using the herbed mayonnaise. Game changer! 15 lbs took 90 minutes in a convection oven. The legs were done in 60 minutes and had to be protected with foil while the breast cooked. (Turkey was from d’Artagnan.)
Used this recipe for my first Thanksgiving turkey. Nerve wracking but came out beautifully. Next time Ill make the mayo dressing ahead of time to allow the flavors to meld. The tip to check at the 1hr mark was perfect, too.
My 10 pound Turkey was fully cooked by 50 min.
I love this recipe. This was the second year I made it and it is a huge hit with everyone. The breast meat is juicy and flavorful. Spatchcocking the turkey was intimidating the first time, but it makes a difference in the cooking time and makes the day so much easier.
Spatchcocked a 14 pound prebrined supermarket bird and prepared per the recipe, then roasted on a Weber grill with indirect heat, some soaked hickory chips on the coals, and a beer can of water on the side for evaporative moisture. Stuck a digital thermometer probe in the breast, covered, never peeked until it reached 170f, around 2 hours. Never had a bird more perfect. New go-to method. Going to try it with a chicken and the masala/garlic/ginger masala mayo that another reader posted.
This was so delicious! We won our family’s annual turkey contest this year. Followed the recipe as written up to the cooking — smoked it at 350 for a couple of hours and it turned out great.
I strongly recommend adding lemon juice and a hot green chili to the mayo for the next day sandwiches.
Ive followed this recipe for two years in a row, and I intend to use it for all of the Thanksgivings Ill ever host in the future. The result is not just a delicious, moist turkey, but it also is beautiful when it comes out of the oven. The skin turns a gorgeous crusty brown. The drippings yield an excellent gravy that everyone heaps on their mashed potatoes and stuffing. The only recommendation I have is that you double the amount of mayo — save some for sandwiches with the leftover turkey.
Made exactly as written. Most perfect, delicious, moist, packed full of flavor bird weve ever had. Outstanding. Cant imagine making turkey any other way ever again.
Made this the first year to much success and left the bird whole. This year I was so proud to spatchcock it—cooked in about 70 minutes for an 11-12 lbs bird. So thankful for the recipe.Private notes are only visible to you.
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