The Absolute Best Way to Roast a Turkey, According to a 4th Generation Turkey Farmer

If you close your eyes and say "Thanksgiving," what pops into your head? For many of us, it's probably an image of a beautifully burnished roast turkey surrounded by all of the go-to holiday sides. Because of turkey's central role in the Thanksgiving meal, there's a lot of pressure on that bird—and the people roasting the bird.

But it doesn't have to be that way. To help boost your confidence this year, Parade sat down with Heidi Diestel, a fourth-generation farmer at Diestel Family Ranch in Sonora, California, a town right at the base of Yosemite. Diestel turkeys, which you can find at Whole Foods and other markets, are fed a 100% vegetarian diet, raised with no antibiotics, hormones or growth stimulants and get to roam the hills on the farm. Lucky birds!

Every Thanksgiving, Diestel and her family gather at the home of 97-year-old Grandpa Jack, who formally founded the ranch in 1949. The family roasts a 30-pound (no, that's not a typo) turkey in a commercial oven (see: 30-pound bird!) in a giant pan that they have just for the occasion. But even if you aren't roasting a giant turkey, Diestel's super smart turkey tips will help you turn out a bird that's worthy of this special day.

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8 Top Turkey-Roasting Tips from a 4th Generation Turkey Farmer

Diestel was very generous with her time, taking us through the turkey-roasting process from start to finish. Her main themes were being prepared, keeping things simple and trying to relax and enjoy yourself. We think that's pretty great life advice, too.

1. Take a Deep Breath (and Buy a Good Bird)

When we asked Diestel for her top tip, it had nothing to do with the actual cooking of the bird. "The biggest issue I see is the anxiety that comes with roasting the bird," she says. People get very anxious about it because they don't do it a lot, and so they walk into the situation being like, 'Holy moly, I'm going to screw this up, and it's for my entire family.' That's a lot of pressure.

If you buy a good quality bird you can forget the anxiety because the bird is going to do the work. When you have really good quality product that you're starting with, it's so much easier to make that taste delicious. It's like buying a really good, juicy, delicious, tasty tomato that's local and in season versus buying it at the grocery store, and it's not in season and not local.

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2. Check the Bird

Once you have the bird at home, make sure you're prepping it correctly. "Check the bird before roasting day," she says. "Folks will buy a turkey and they don't realize how cold they are, especially natural and organic birds that have no preservatives. They're going to be really, really firm and cold."

Diestel says that most turkeys are "supermarket cold," which means they've been kept in poultry coolers that are set at 28 to 30 degrees. For comparison, most home refrigerators are between 35 and 38 degrees. The general rule of thumb is for every four pounds of bird, allow your turkey one day to thaw in the refrigerator. Diestel says that you want the bird to be soft and oven-ready so it cooks evenly. (If that's not the case, we have some thoughts on speeding up the thawing process.)

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3. Keep it Simple

There are lots of different schools of thought when it comes to seasoning your turkey. Some people like a dry brine, while other swear by a wet brine. We've also seen people using mayo and Parmesan cheese to create crispy turkey skin. But Diestel and her family prefer a simpler approach.

"I think it is super fun to experiment because turkey can take on so much flavor so beautifully, but for Thanksgiving we keep it really simple," she says."Thanksgiving has a lot going on. You have a lot of sides, you've got people coming over and I personally don't want to be fussing with the turkey. I just want it to be simple and delicious. So we just do a salt, paprika, olive oil rub, and we rub that liberally all over the bird. The salt gives it flavor, the paprika gives it a beautiful red color that roasts up beautifully and that's it. We stick the turkey and let it do its thing, and we focus on family and having a cocktail and making the mashed potatoes."

Once the turkey is seasoned and in the pan, they add a little bit of water or stock to the roasting pan to make sure the juices don't burn.

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4. To Stuff or Not to Stuff?

This is a hot topic of conversation around Thanksgiving, but Diestel's family is firmly in the stuffing-inside-the-turkey camp.

"Oh, man. Stuffing the bird is by far the best. All the juices from the turkey intermingle with the stuffing. I think the stuffing takes on such a more dynamic flavor that you cannot get when it's in a pan. Cooking it in the turkey it gives it a flavor that's unmatched."

Related: 12 Thanksgiving Dressing Recipes To Stuff Yourself With

5. Consider Taking it Low and Slow

Turkey-cooking temperatures are also a hot topic around Thanksgiving. Some people like to start the bird at a high temperature to crisp the skin, then reduce the heat to cook the meat. The Diestel family leans into simplicity here, too. "We're a low and slow family," says Diestel. We roast our turkey at 325°.

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6. Yes, You Need a Thermometer

Once your turkey is oven-ready, make a mental note of how the bird is going to cook, which will help you with planning out your meal—and make sure you have a meat thermometer.

"Cooks need to remember mass and oven, ovens and mass. The bird is going to roast more quickly in the second half of your roasting time than in the first half, because as that big animal is picking up and cooking and cooking and cooking, the juices are flowing the whole mass in the oven, the meat is warmer on that second half," says Diestel.

"That's why it's really important to check your turkey using a thermometer. You can use fancy thermometer and you can also do it the old school way where you check the bird with the basic thermometer, but when you check the bird's temperature halfway through, which is ideal to do, it's going to cook more quickly on that second half. You want to be pulling the turkey out of the oven before it's too roasted."

For a tender, juicy turkey, you're looking for 165°, but remember that a turkey is a big chunk of meat, which means that the temperature will rise as it rests outside the oven. Also keep in mind that if you stuff your turkey the stuffing need to also reach 165°.

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7. Skip the Basting, but Start Building Your Gravy in the Oven

Diestel's family isn't big on basting the bird as it cooks because, depending on how often you baste the bird, you could run the risk of have not-so-crisp skin and opening and closing the oven can lengthen your cooking time. As she mentioned before, the family also likes to stick the turkey in the oven and move on to other things, so the less babysitting the better.

The one thing they do do is give the pan juices a little help mid-way through cooking. "About halfway through the roasting time, we'll pour a cup or so of white wine, like a nice tasty Chardonnay, something really like buttery or earthy, into the roasting pan," she says. "It adds good flavor for building for the gravy."

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8. Give It a Rest

This is one of those full-circle moments. Remember when Diestel said to take it easy when you're thinking about roasting a turkey? Well, the bird needs a break when it comes out of the oven too. This final rest will help both the cook and the turkey.

"When it come out of the oven, cover it with foil, stick it on the counter and let it sit there for 30 minutes while you reheat the casserole, get the potatoes crunchy on the top and do whatever else you need to do," Diestel says. "And then go and carve your bird after the rest period. That's mission-critical to lock in all the juices. If you go and slice right into that bird five minutes after pulling it out of the oven, the juices will literally spray out of the turkey, and that's not what you want. You want all of those juices locked into the meat."

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