How Katie Lee Biegel Prepares Her Thanksgiving Turkey- Exclusive
What's the right way to cook a Thanksgiving turkey? To put it simply, there isn't one. Every family tradition and home cook has a different method to getting the perfect bird, whether it's fried, roasted, grilled, and so on. It's all about technique, planning, and some delicious seasoning. Martha Stewart recommends spatchcocking which is a butterflying method that involves removing a chicken's backbone so it gets flatter (per Food & Wine).
If spatchcocking isn't up your alley, maybe Food Network's Katie Lee Biegel's method is exactly what you need this Turkey Day. During an exclusive interview with Mashed, "The Kitchen" star revealed her best holiday tips and tricks as the celebrations are almost underway. A Thanksgiving turkey is known to be a huge dinner centerpiece with a bird that can be as big as 20 pounds. Often, this large of a turkey can take more time to cook and may be extra stressful for novice cooks. That's why Biegel provided a solution to prevent that stress on the day of the holiday.
Biegel likes to dry brine her turkey
With all of these cooking methods floating around, it can be difficult to hone in on one way to cook your turkey. Katie Lee Biegel advises doing a dry brine, as she told Mashed, "I'm not into the wet brine; I think that's too messy." The food personality continued, "I do herb butter under the skin, and then I do a mixture of salt, garlic powder, [and] onion powder as my dry brine on the turkey." Biegel explained that cooking a turkey is "about planning ahead" and allowing it time to thaw properly if bought frozen.
According to Simply Recipes, dry brining consists of rubbing the turkey thoroughly with salt and popping it in the refrigerator for one to three days. Then you take it out of the fridge and roast it, as the salt results in more moisture. Wet brining, which Biegel isn't a fan of, requires you to place the turkey in a saltwater solution before roasting it. Depending on the size of your dinner party, the cookbook author recommends purchasing a smaller size bird and additional turkey breast.
Biegel explains, "... so what I like to do is make a turkey breast the day before, and then make a smaller, regular-size turkey, a 14- to 16-pound turkey, [on the] day of and then reheat that breast. That way, you've got a lot of extra turkey meat." Now you know her secret to handling Thanksgiving turkey stress, and you can put that advice to good use. Biegel's new partnership with appliance brand, Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove even introduced "kitchen therapy," to lessen the chaos that the holiday season brings. Happy gobbling!
Learn more about Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove's appliances on its website, and head to Katie Lee Biegel's Instagram page to keep up with her future projects.