Impress Guests with a Grilled Thanksgiving Turkey – Free Up the Oven

Your friends and family will gobble up your turkey and be asking how they can try grilling a turkey next year.  Save your oven space, skip the paper bag, and spend more of your holiday outside this Thanksgiving while grilling your way to perfectly crisp outside and satisfyingly moist inside.

 

Grilling a Whole Turkey—When deep frying isn’t for you!

We cannot keep this to ourselves anymore, if you are blessed with a non-freezing Thanksgiving (or Christmas) then you should seriously consider grilling your Thanksgiving Turkey this year. We are talking to Florida, all of the Southwest, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and most of California. If you didn’t make the obvious list, then maybe a warm front will surprise some other parts of the country and you’ll be inspired to follow our lead. 

Why Choose Grilling Over Deep Frying?

Deep frying turkeys has been quite a trend the last few years but we say don’t risk your lives deep frying the bird. If you insist on getting a turkey deep fryer setup then make sure to understand the risks as described here and to protect your hands and arms with extra long BBQ grill gloves like our original ekogrips® or our new ekogrips® plus.

For those of you with only a single oven in the kitchen, this also frees up some critical capacity for Thanksgiving side dishes and simplifies the logistics of the day. But to really, wow your guests, grill them a whole Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas dinner main, as not so many people are familiar with this option. And most importantly, if the weather outside is favorable for grilling in November then you’ll definitely be thanking us for breathing in some fresh air tending the grill to change up the scenery.

Benefits of Grilling Your Turkey

While we wish we could tell you that grilled turkey is full on taste, high on protein and absolutely zero calories, we are not magicians.  The grill makes it tasty, for sure, and doesn’t take any longer than the oven, but using a grill instead of the oven can be uber helpful on big days and you probably don’t need much incentive to mixup your day with some time on your back patio. 

 Free Up the Oven for Side Dishes

Beyond the benefits of wowing the guests--which hopefully is a bonus rather than a requirement from close friends and family--there’s the very practical benefits of opening up significant prime real estate in the oven space during critical hours leading up to the main event.

How many side dishes would be simpler if you could use the oven on Thanksgiving morning? Macaroni & cheese, stuffing, green beans… what’s your family’s tradition? You no longer need to lock-up the oven for 3-5 hours if you can brave the outdoors and throw that bird on the grill. You should be forewarned that it will be difficult to get the temperature up using a propane tank if the outside temperatures are below about the mid-forties Fahrenheit.

Preparing for the Perfect Grilled Turkey

Since you’ve made it this far you should plan to have a grill and lid large enough to fit the turkey with at least some extra grate area off to one side or the other.  Most standard propane grills can handle this; although you may have to fold any second racks or warming stations out of the way.  If you are wondering how large the turkey will be, check out this UK website for reference (1 kg = 2.2 lbs, 1cm = 0.39 inches). While we haven’t tried a pellet grill for this; it should work using low heat and higher grill grate settings even if it’s not technically ‘indirect grilling’ and of course the wood pellets would impart some smoke flavor to the finished bird.

 

Equipment and Preparation

Before we launched cold turkey into this grilling adventure, we pulled out Weber’s Ultimate Grilling book to make sure we didn’t completely ruin 12-15 lbs of healthy protein all in one go. The detailed info about direct and indirect grilling, as well as a section dedicated specifically to ‘whole turkey grilling basics’ gave us the confidence to try it ourselves.

We will break this all down here for you but wanted to give credit where its due and if you like grilled turkey recipes then this book may inspire you to keep that grill in play for more than just hamburgers next summer.

'cover it with mayonnaise and whatever herbs you have around, and fill the inside with citrus, onion, and apples’

This simple tip came from an assistant chef at a California winery—and it works whether you use the oven or the grill. Why Mayo? Take a look at all the work to try and keep the butter on the bird in the Grilling Book or other recipe websites; mayo stays in place better and goes on at room temperature while still delivering a nice crispy finish. Dig in more with this article.

Thawing and Brining

Be sure to start a couple days ahead if you have a frozen turkey.  You’ll want to be ready on grill-day with a turkey that’s already brined and fully thawed to avoid delays and last minute surprises.  Check to see if your particular turkey says its already been brined—no need to do it again.  Any standard brining/thawing process is fine for this, if you are looking for inspiration we recommend ‘dry-brining’ mainly so it takes up less room in our refrigerator, check out this site for more info, and feel free to rub it on even before the bird has thawed.

Recipe and Ingredients

These ingredients and any recipe is inherently specific, but don’t worry too much about some mild departures from this if you have different citrus on hand, or not quite as much, or different herbs--these details fall into the poetic license any chef should have in their own personal culinary journey.

Ingredients

• Whole turkey (thawed, brined), 10-14lbs.
• Turkey seasoning
  • Kosher salt, ~ ¼ cup
  • Black pepper, 2 tbsp
  • Herb selection (rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil), 2-3 tbsp of 2-3 of your favorites
• Stuffing
  • citrus, 1-2 medium oranges, quartered
  • onion, 1-2 medium, peeled and quartered
  • apples, 1-2, cored, cut in large pieces
• mayonnaise, ½ cup

 

Equipment

• Aluminum pan or Sheet pan
• Gas grill, pellet grill, or charcoal grill (gas or pellets preferred for easy temperature control)
• Turkey V tray or roasting rack
• Cooking twine
• Meat thermometer, leave-in preferred

 

Step-by-Step Process

1. Thaw and Dry-brine turkey (includes removing giblets and packaging) or skip if already brined and thawed.
2. Mix mayo and turkey seasoning in a small bowl.
3. Coat inside and outside of turkey with herbed mayo.
4. Fill the cavity with citrus, onion, and apples and secure cavity with butcher’s twine, on a stand in a sheet pan.
5. Tuck wings underneath and forward.
6. Let sit for 1 hour at room temperature.
7. Place into 350F preheated grill over indirect heat, sheet pan and all.
8. (Recommended but optional) Insert leave-in thermometer probes to the thickest part of the thigh without touching bone.  If you have more than 1 probe, using additional for the thickest part of the breast and for the air temperature near the turkey is nice to have.  We use the Weber iGrill probes since it integrates with our Weber 3 burner propane grill.
9. Cook until internal temperature of thigh reaches 165, and/or breast reaches 155, approximately 2.5hrs for a 12-14lb turkey (the internal temperature will continue to rise for some time after removing from the grill)
10. Remove from heat and allow to rest 30min to an hour before carving (OK to tip the bird and gather extra juices right away for gravy)
11. Enjoy

Pro Tips for Grilling Success

Hopefully you already did some extra cleaning on your grill at the end of traditional grilling season.  If not, plan for a few extra minutes after it gets up to temperature.  Using a heavy duty grill brush like this, brush off the grates to avoid mixing your leftover hamburger char with your Thanksgiving turkey.  Be sure to tuck away any extra trays that might prevent the turkey from fitting and start dialing in the temperature towards 350F.

Temperature Control

For our bird we have a 3 burner weber propane grill, and used only the outer burners to control the temperature, leaving the center burner off entirely for indirect heat. The turkey, roasting rack, and sheet pan combo was placed in the center. At about 1/2 heat on each of the side burners, the grill settled in about 340F per lid thermometer but finished early (only 2.5hrs!).

Use a grill thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, and then in the breast; it should read about 155F when it is done. Since we have a Weber Grill we also use their Weber iGrill temperature probes and app to keep track of the temperature in real-time (our second choice that works with any grill would be the Meater wireless probes); but a simple instant read thermometer can also work; just try not to check too often because keeping the lid closed is critical to cooking with indirect heat.

Make a Delicious Turkey Stock While You Grill

Since many Thanksgiving dinners offer turkey, stuffing, and gravy, we thought bundling some of these would help add synergy to the hectic cooking schedule.  The juices you have from cooking the turkey are great for stuffing or gravy, but there’s not always enough for everything so using the giblets and neck to make a tasty stock is one way to make the turkey go even further.

 

Pressure Cooker Stock Recipe

While the turkey is grilling you can make some yummy turkey stock for stuffing, gravy, or soup. These directions are for an automatic pressure cooker like the Instant Pot, but any pressure cooker works; plan on an extra 1-3 hours of simmering without the added pressure.  No need for the turkey drippings here so you can make it early.

Turn on Saute mode, add 3tbsp canola oil (or other high smoke point oil) and wait about 1 minute to heat up.  Add the neck and turkey giblets (we skipped the liver), for some brief browning, about 2-4 minutes turning a few times before you toss in 1-2 cups mirepoix (mixture of chopped onions, celery, and carrots), and ½ cup sliced mushrooms to the pot and allow to soften; cooking about 3 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add 5-8 cups of water, 2-3 tbsp salt, a healthy dash of pepper, give it a good stir and place the lid on ready for pressure cooking.  Set it for 25 minutes in manual mode and you’ll have stock ready for use in other dishes ASAP.

Gravy Made from Grilled Turkey Drippings

I stopped looking up recipes for gravy years ago—that’s when it finally clicked for me, so I apologize if this recipe isn’t as easy to follow.  Good gravy is all about balancing fat, flavor, and some thickening agent—usually flour or corn starch.  For flavor you can lean on the turkey drippings, salt, and pepper.

 

Using Turkey Drippings for Flavorful Gravy

After removing the turkey from the grill, it’s time to drain some Drippings from the sheet pan to use for gravy, add 1/3-1/2 cup flour and saute, add salt and pepper to taste, cook on medium for 3-5 minutes depending on how brown you want it; slowly add 1-3 cups stock depending on how much gravy you want, and how thick you like it. Stir and keep on med low heat for a few minutes, transitioning to low or off when the mealtime is near.  It's easy to leave this to cool and come back for a quick warming if you aren’t eating for a while.  See you at the Feast!