The Best Roast Turkey Recipe

Hi guys! Today I'm going to show you how to roast a whole turkey the easiest way. I've got a 13 pound whole fresh turkey here. You can of course use a frozen turkey just make sure you thaw it in the fridge for a couple of days. The turkey already came like this with the legs together. If the legs on your turkey are separated make sure you tie them with kitchen twine. Usually when you get a turkey in the cavity there's going to be the neck or other parts in a packet. Just take that out we'll use it and then in the neck cavity there's a packet with the innards. We'll use the parts to make a stock and delicious gravy with all the drippings from the roasted turkey. I'll put that video up separately. Wash the turkey dry it with paper towels. Pat the turkey dry as best as you can. Heat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 205 degrees Celsius. All we need for the turkey is some salted butter. Leave it out of the fridge for a little while so it gets soft. If you forgot to leave it outside just cut it into a few pieces and microwave it for a few seconds and it'll be ready. To cook the turkey use a baking sheet with a rack on it. You can also use a traditional deep roasting pan. If you don't have a rack take some aluminum foil and make a circle with it then put the turkey on top of that. Take the soft butter and rub it all over the turkey on both sides. Put the rest of the butter inside the cavity. I used half a stick of butter, four tablespoons. You can put butter under the skin if you want but you have to be very careful not to tear into the skin because otherwise you're going to have broken skin and the turkey's not going to look perfect. You don't absolutely have to but it's really up to you. The wings should be tucked under for a neater appearance and so it doesn't get too dark too quick. Just the tip if your turkey is cold and the house is cold the butter is going to solidify on top of the cold turkey. So you can melt the butter instead of softening it and rub it all over the skin. During the busy Thanksgiving day you might not remember take the turkey out of the fridge in time and have enough space in your kitchen to leave a giant bird out. Put the turkey on the rack breast side down. Oh that's a heavy bird plus I'm working around the camera which I missed literally by an inch. Put the turkey in the heated oven on the middle or lower rack. You may have to remove one rack from your oven to fit the turkey. Make sure there are a few inches of space above the turkey because you don't want the top to get too brown too quick. Cook for approximately one hour and 30 minutes or until the thigh is 160 degrees fahrenheit. Use gloves to turn the turkey over. I'm using my barbecue gloves. Oh boy very crispy skin. Put the turkey back in the oven and cook for approximately one hour until the thigh is 180 degrees fahrenheit and the breast is 160 degrees fahrenheit. The entire cooking time for this 13 pound turkey was two and a half hours. Cover the turkey loosely with foil and leave for about 15 minutes. I'll cut into a piece of the breast for you. The meat is juicy and the skin is really crispy but we didn't salt the meat because we use salted butter and the meat has a lot of flavor from the salted butter. You don't need to add extra salt. Skin is nice and salty buttery crispy. I hope you make this easy roasted turkey with one ingredient just salted butter and let me know how it turned out. Turn on your notifications so you know when I upload the next video which is going to be gravy for this yummy turkey. I hope you also make my sweet potato casserole recipe which is pretty straightforward and a great side dish. Click on the playlist to get more ideas for your holiday dinner. See you next time. Thanks for watching.