How to Carve a Turkey (2024)

FAQs

How long should a turkey sit before carving it? ›

First, allow your cooked turkey to sit for about 20 minutes before starting to carve. Beginning halfway up the breast, slice straight down with an even stroke. When the knife reaches the cut above the wing joint, the slice should fall free on its own.

Keep your slices neat and the breast skin intact by slicing against the grain with long, deliberate strokes. After slicing, transfer the white meat to your serving platter. Slice the Dark Meat: Use your paper towels to clean the turkey juices from your carving board and hands.

Place the carved turkey pieces back into the roasting pan, cover well, and store in the fridge. To reheat, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Keeping the turkey in the roasting pan, pour a bit of stock (chicken, turkey, or veggie stock or broth will work) over the meat to moisten it.

According to a study by the food safety experts at the USDA, washing or rinsing raw turkey can put you at risk of foodborne illness. There's only one time you should wash a raw turkey, and that is after brining. Otherwise, do not wash a turkey before cooking.

If your turkey is done several hours before your meal, let it rest. Then carve off the breast meat, the legs and the thighs and arrange them on a serving platter and cover with foil. Just before you're ready to serve, reheat the platter in the oven (about 20 minutes at 350°F).

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Pull it out as soon as the temperature hits 165, or even a little lower. The amount of resting time depends on the size of the bird, but at least 20 minutes is needed. A large bird can wait up to 40 minutes or longer, depending on the temperature of the room.

How to find the grain on a piece of meat? If you look closely at your meat after it has been cooked, you'll see little lines running across it. That's the grain we're talking about. To slice meat against the grain, just hold your knife perpendicular to the grain and cut thin slices.

A bird that has been overcooked will be dry and will crumble under the knife. An undercooked turkey will be a wrestling match as you try to flex its joints. Also, be sure to allow at least a half hour of “resting” after removing the turkey from the oven, to allow the meat to reabsorb the juices.

Before you cut a thing, let your turkey rest — at least 30 minutes — so its juices don't end up on the cutting board. Use a board large enough to fit the entire bird and preferably with grooves around the edges to catch stray liquid.

What knife to use to carve a turkey? ›

We recommend the Victorinox Swiss Classic 8" Chef's Knife, which has Victorinox's patented Fibrox easy-to-grip, slip-resistant, ergonomic handle. Another great choice for a turkey carving knife is a hollow-edge slicer such as the Wusthof Classic 9" Hollow-edge Carving Knife.

Locate the bird's chest. Lift the skin from the chest and cut into the meat. Poke around the area, searching for the V-shaped bone. Once you've found it, use a paring knife to carefully cut around the wishbone.

Pull away the turkey wings last; these are also composed of two pieces – the wing and the little drumstick. Separate the two and serve them whole. Arrange the freshly carved turkey on a large platter. Arrange the larger pieces, like the sliced turkey breast and drumsticks on the top, over any smaller cuts of turkey.

To carve the drumsticks, hold them by the end and slice the meat, parallel to the bone, into 1/4-inch slices. For the thighs, turn the thighs skin-side down and run your knife around the thighbone on all sides. Then, carefully twist and pull the bone away and slice the thigh meat as desired.