Thawing a frozen turkey

I’m sure you know never to thaw a turkey at room temperature because it can develop harmful levels of bacteria and food poisoning would certainly take the fun out of the holiday. These are the official USDA instructions. The conventional wisdom (also according to Butterball who should know) is that refrigerator thawing is best. Do it breast side up, in unopened wrapper, on a tray in the refrigerator, allowing at least 1 day of thawing for every 4 pounds of turkey.

Oops, for a 20 pound turkey I might sometimes have, that’s 5 days. I rarely plan that far ahead and it wouldn’t be handy to have the refrigerator basically unusable that long. An alternate cold-water thaw is done by having the bird in the unopened wrapper, breast side down, in enough cold water to cover it completely and to change the water frequently to keep the water cold. This would take about 30 minutes per pound for a whole turkey. So, in my 20-lb case, that’s 10 hours, which I can manage. However, I’ve tried this in the sink, but that’s not enough water for a large bird and the bathtub is too much water to keep cool. Once I dreamed up what I thought was an original Heloise-worthy idea (that is until I Googled it). Here is a link to instructions for thawing a turkey in an Igloo insulated container. LINK  I have my operation outside so that I can use the hose for filling and then easily drain the container into the flower bed. I keep a refrigerator thermometer in the cooler to monitor the temperature. If the weather is quite cool and the water temp seems to be staying the same, I don’t always feel the need to change it. It is important to cook the turkey right away after thawing this way—e.g. don’t put it back in the refrigerator.

Another safety warning.If you want stuffing (aka dressing), bake that separately, not inside the turkey if using a low temperature roasting method. Stuffing the bird with chunks of onion, celery, apple and/or orange is safe and provides moisture.