The MeatStick Cooking Guide: How to Keep Your Turkey Tender and Juicy! (2024)

FAQs

The MeatStick Cooking Guide: How to Keep Your Turkey Tender and Juicy!? ›

Roast the turkey in the preheated oven. Baste every 30 minutes with the pan juices. If the turkey starts to brown too quickly, tent it with aluminum foil. The turkey is done when your MeatStick app alerts you when the turkey is about to reach 165°F (74°C) and the juices run clear when you pierce the thigh with a knife.

HOW TO COOK A PERFECTLY MOIST AND JUICY TURKEY. Start by “brining” the turkey. This means soaking it in salt water overnight in the fridge (generally using a brining bag). You can also add a few flavors to the brine if you so desire.

Oven-Roasted Turkey

We recommend starting the turkey in a 425 degree oven for 30-45 minutes before tenting the pan with foil and lowering the temperature to 350 degrees until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees when inserted into the thickest part of the bird.

Place your carved meat in a shallow baking dish and cover it with stock. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and place in low oven, somewhere around 250 degrees, for 5-10 minutes. The dryness won't be entirely gone after this short broth bath, but the turkey will definitely be more moist than before.

We recommend roasting turkey at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 13 minutes per pound for an unstuffed turkey. We've done the math for you — check out the chart below to determine both turkey cook times and estimated servings (with leftovers!).

To keep the turkey moist, add a little broth or water and cover. Cover your food and rotate it for even heating.

Use Turkey Stock

If your turkey is too dry, heat the broth in a wide, shallow pan and add the turkey slices to rehydrate them. Alternatively, you can use the oven: put the turkey in an oven-proof pan, pour the stock overtop, cover the pan, and reheat on low, around 300 degrees F (150 degrees C), for about 20 minutes.

Collagen in the bird (one of three protein fibers that attaches muscles to the bone) breaks down into softer gelatin molecules as it unwinds. If a turkey is cooked too long, the muscle proteins coagulate within the meat and cause dryness.

"Often, consumers will inquire about adding water to the bottom of their roasting pans. We do not recommend adding water to the bottom of the pan. Cooking a turkey with steam is a moist heat-cook method and is acceptable, sure, but is not the preferred method for cooking your turkey."

Should you bake a turkey covered or uncovered? ›

To achieve a perfectly golden, juicy turkey, let the bird spend time both covered and uncovered in the oven. We recommend covering your bird for most of the cooking time to prevent it from drying out; then, during the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, remove the cover so the skin crisps in the hot oven.

An upside-down turkey may seem to go against normal conventions of roasting breast-side up, but this method lets all the juices drip down into the breast meat, keeping it moist and tender.

After roasting countless turkeys over the past few decades, I can confidently say that giving your bird a dunk in a luxurious saltwater brine (also known as a wet brine) results in extra tender, impossibly juicy meat.

The problem: Cooking the turkey whole

According to Sklar, one of the biggest mistakes people make is cooking the turkey whole. Because dark meat has more connective tissues, it takes longer to break down, so if you cook the turkey whole, by time the legs and thighs are done, the breasts are overcooked and dry.

Impart rich flavor and add moisture to your Thanksgiving turkey by adding a layer of butter under the skin before roasting. Learn how to do this simple (but genius) technique for a delicious Thanksgiving turkey.

There are two ways to cook turkeys using aluminum foil: aluminum foil turkey tents and aluminum foil-wrapped turkeys. Both methods effectively trap steam and moisture, which helps prevent the turkey from drying out without frequent basting.