Making Thanksgiving dinner involves so many steps that it’s easy to overlook tiny details or get something wrong. So you forgot to buy mini marshmallows for the sweet potato casserole. Nobody’s perfect, right? As it turns out, there’s one misstep that’s worse than all the others. It’s not pairing the wrong wine with your meal or trashing the turkey wishbone before the kids can have at it. Believe it or not, it’s forgetting to thaw your turkey ahead of time. Even experienced cooks sometimes space out on this step. In fact, how and when to thaw a turkey is the No. 1 most-asked question that the Butterball Turkey Talk Line gets each year. Flubbing this step is a serious problem because it makes it tricky to properly cook the bird. If you try to cook a frozen turkey, the inner meat will be undercooked, and that can put everyone at risk of a foodborne illness. Salmonella and E. coli are the most common bacteria found in turkey, and to kill them the meat needs to be an internal temperature of 165º F. To hit that safe spot, insert a meat thermometer deep into the thigh. Eyeballing the meat isn’t a reliable way to gauge doneness. The only safe way to thaw a turkey is in your refrigerator, but it’s not as simple as tossing the bird between the leftover green beans and bottles of wine for a few hours and hoping for the best. It takes 24 hours for every 4-5 pounds for it to defrost. Let’s say you have a 15-pound turkey. You’ll need to allow at least 3 days for it to thaw. Don’t worry — your meal doesn’t hinge on your ability to do math. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a handy thaw calculator that tells you exactly how long to defrost based on the size of your turkey. What about the giblets packet? You can still thaw a frozen turkey safely with a giblets packet — just remove it as soon as the turkey is thawed out enough to do so. Once thawed, the turkey will stay good in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.
