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Turkey Recipes Guide: 12 Recipe Ideas For Cooking Your Turkey

First Posted: 11/23/2010 11:35 pm   Updated: 08/31/2012 10:48 am

**Scroll down for 12 of the best turkey recipes.**

We won't presume to tell you the single best way to cook your Thanksgiving turkey, as no undisputed King of Methods exists, and individual tastes and traditions reign, but we can show you some of the best turkey recipes and techniques around, along with some more manageable -- and often more tasty -- non-whole-bird options.

Alton Brown's Good Eats Roast Turkey
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Alton Brown's much-loved turkey recipe uses an 8-16 hour brine (get started!), and starts off with very high heat.

Get the recipe.
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The turkey recipes listed above:


1. Alton Brown's Cider-Brined-and-Glazed Turkey
Alton Brown's much-loved turkey recipe uses an 8-16 hour brine (get started!), and starts off with very high heat.


2. Martha Stewart's Roast Turkey with Rosemary and Lemon
As featured in our Martha Stewart Thanksgiving recipes lineup slideshow.


3. Meathead's Smoked Turkey
Writes Meathead:

This is no ordinary turkey preparation, pilgrims. Follow these detailed steps and you will never have a dry, stringy, cardboardy, boring bird again. ...
I recommend smoking it, but if you must cook indoors, there are a number of tips and techniques we employ that will amp your bird to 11:
P.S. Those are sage leaves under the skin.


4. The Food Lab's Deep-Fried Turkey:
After poo-pooing the idea that deep-fried Thanksgiving turkey was anything more than a dangerous gimmick resulting in a dry, tasteless bird, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of 'The Food Lab' at Serious Eats had a change of heart: "OK, Deep Fried Turkey Is Awesome!"
Want to truly leverage the potential of a deep-fried turkey? Buffalo Fried Turkey: get the recipe.


5. Torrisi's Revered Roasted Turkey Breast
Torrisi has really hit the New York restaurant world over the head this year, in no small part to its exquiste roasted turkey breasts, used in its lunchtime Josh Ozersky-dubbed 'Best Turkey Sandwich Ever.' They use a fairly specialized oven to cook their turkey breasts that nobody really has in their homes, but you can get pretty close with their recipe recently published by Sam Sifton in the Times.


6. Mark Bittman's Braised Turkey
Another approach rejecting whole-bird idealism.


7. Bobby Flay's Pioneer-Style Herb Roasted Turkey with Sage Gravy


8. Simply Recipes' Mom's Roast Turkey


9. Gourmet's Cider-Glazed Turkey


10. Cook's Illustrated's Roasted Brined Turkey


11. The Food Network's 'World's Simplest Thanksgiving Turkey'


12. Chow.com's Thanksgiving Turkey Cake

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Filed by Colin Sterling  | 
 
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
trying this again
01:44 AM on 11/25/2010
I'm doing the Alton Brown brined turkey again this year. Last year was the first time and it was the best turkey I have ever made. It stayed juicy even as leftovers. It's very easy to make and it's practically foolproof.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
ljkcan
I don't let geographical borders limit my thinking
03:50 PM on 11/25/2010
I am going to try that this Christmas. I normally don't like turkey for that reason it is too dry.
I make a stuffing with rice and pine nuts.
12:32 PM on 11/24/2010
I found some great tips for how to prepare a spatchcocked turkey via http://feeltiptop.com/Spatchcocked+Turkey/ as well as other Thanksgiving meal & travel tips at http://ftt.nu/thanksgiving
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millebocca
veni, vidi, clicki
12:03 PM on 11/24/2010
sage and garlic part of the rub-in, and a dash o' nutmeg goes into the gravy!
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11:39 AM on 11/24/2010
How many people are aware of the true history of the Thanksgiving turkey?

www.sprocketsinside.blogspot.com
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Brian Hudson
Educator and freelance creator.
10:36 AM on 11/24/2010
The Good Eats (Alton Brown) recipe IS awesome. I brine my turkey every year.

BUT ... the title this article gives it is wrong. The cider-brined is a different recipe than the Good Eats recipe, which is the one linked and pictured.
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HUFFPOST BLOGGER
Colin Sterling
08:43 PM on 11/24/2010
Whoops, fixed. Thanks for the catch!
09:32 AM on 11/24/2010
Meathead = the best.
09:07 AM on 11/24/2010
All these turkey recipes sound great and I would do them all in a Nesco Roaster oven, when done, there is absolutely no wasted turkey left on the bone...
05:42 AM on 11/24/2010
Mmm those look so good. Roasted animal, can't wait to try it with a side of Fetus Apple Pie.
09:33 AM on 11/24/2010
Seriously, could you vegans be any more of a buzzkill?
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Alice Radley
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
10:28 AM on 11/24/2010
The eating of animal protein helped us to develop these large, impressive brains of ours. Please don't waste that gift by posting something so insulting and uniformed.
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Ezradanielv
Bleeding heart.
04:43 AM on 11/24/2010
Brining is key!
03:39 PM on 11/24/2010
I am doing that for the first time this year - wish me luck!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Ezradanielv
Bleeding heart.
05:17 PM on 11/24/2010
Good luck! You won't believe how moist and juicy the meat will be. :-)
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Ezradanielv
Bleeding heart.
04:09 PM on 11/26/2010
How did it go? :-)
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TazoWolf
Med student, Colorado
04:22 AM on 11/24/2010
I like to inject my turkey with a broth that consists of butter, chicken/turkey broth, lime juice (it doesn't really give flavor, but the acidity makes the meat extremely tender & helps with distribution of the injections), garlic juice, and various herbs. I've even included powdered Wasabi (the real stuff), which adds a nice bite & tang to the turkey.