Quick reminder: Did you move the frozen turkey to the fridge?

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You’ve probably bought a frozen Thanksgiving turkey ahead of time, and even carefully calculated cooking times. But, are you taking enough time to thaw it before you cook it?

The USDA makes recommendations on thawing the bird, based on a couple of methods; the “fridge” method, and the “cold water” method.

The fridge method involves the extraneous action of taking the bird out of the freezer, and into the fridge. They commend that for every four pounds of turkey, allowing 24 hours for defrosting.

4 lbs: 1 day
8 lbs: 2 days
12 lbs: 3 days
16 lbs: 4 days

But, why should you take so much time out of your busy schedule to thaw a turkey for baking, when you could just throw it in the fryer? Well, this could happen.

Anyway, next is the cold water method. This one is a lot faster, but requires a lot of extra steps. First, you need to make sure there are no holes or cuts in the plastic wrap the turkey came in. Next, fill a large container with cold tap water, and submerge the still fully wrapped cadaver in the water.

Change the water every 30 minutes, allowing 30 minutes of soak time for every pound of turkey.

4 lbs: 1 hour
8 lbs: 4 hours
12 lbs: 6 hours
16 lbs: 8 hours

They also mention a microwave oven method, but that should only be your last resort, and you need to check your microwave’s user manual… IF the bird actually fits inside your microwave oven.

They recommend to cook it as soon as it’s thawed to avoid contamination.

They also made other recommendations, like not washing the turkey.

I guess you could avoid cross-contamination by dealing with everything else first, and leaving the turkey for last. You could also thoroughly clean your sink with bleach after washing the turkey, but that seems like a lot more work.

As for the actual cooking, get yourself a good meat thermometer so you don’t under or overcook it. Overcooking makes it dry, but undercooking it leaves it gamey and can send you to the hospital.