- Remove the turkey from the fridge 1hr before you stuff it to let it come up to room temperature.
- Put turkey, breast-up, on a board. Lift up neck flap and put stuffing inside neck cavity, taking care not to overfill. Pull neck flap back down over stuffing. Turn turkey over on to its breast and secure skin with a skewer.
- Turn turkey back over and spread softened butter all over breast, legs and wings. Lay bacon rashers over entire breast of bird, overlapping slightly, then season well.
- Cooking times are based on weight, but always weigh turkey once stuffed and prepared to calculate cooking time. Allow 30-35min per kg (2lb 3½oz).
- Line a roasting tin with two sheets of foil big enough to come up and over turkey. Put turkey breast-up on foil and loosely bring the foil over, then pinch to seal.
- Cook in oven at 190°C (170°C fan) mark 5 for calculated time, remove foil for last 45min of cooking. Baste turkey at least three times during cooking. If skin is browning too quickly at any point, cover with foil again.
- To check turkey is cooked, insert a fork into the thickest part of thigh and check juices run clear. If there's any red tinge to juice, return bird to oven and keep checking every 10-15min. Alternatively, use a meat thermometer – the temperature needs to read 78°C when inserted into thickest part of breast.
- Transfer turkey to a board, set aside tin to make gravy. Cover turkey with a layer of foil and clean tea towels to help keep heat in. Leave to rest in a warm place for at least 30min or up to 1¼hr. To serve turkey, unwrap and carefully transfer to a warm platter. Don’t forget to remove skewer before carving.
The best carving knives for your turkey
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
