Exactly When To Baste A Turkey So It's Not Dry

To baste or not to baste. That is the question that keeps coming up as you get ready to slide your Thanksgiving turkey in the oven. The argument in favor is that it stops the bird from drying out. The argument against it is that moisture is the enemy of crispy skin. What might help make your decision easy is knowing exactly when to baste a turkey so it's not dry.

Basting is the process of spooning hot, seasoned fat or liquid over meat or fish as it cooks. It helps keep the inside moist while building a caramelized crust on the outside. How often you baste — and what you baste with — depends on what you're cooking. To baste a steak, for instance, you start spooning over melted butter infused with garlic and rosemary right after searing, and continue until the center is cooked to your liking and the exterior has developed a deep brown crust. To get perfectly crispy skin on fish, leave the skin side untouched and baste only the fleshy side with butter until it's cooked through. 

When it comes to roasting a turkey, you want to take a different approach. If you baste the bird too early in the process, or too often, the skin is likely to end up as a soggy mess. Instead, baste the turkey every 30 to 45 minutes to make sure the inside stays moist while the skin can still get nice and crispy. 

There are a couple of reasons for why you only baste the turkey so little. Every time you open the oven door, the temperature drops. Doing it too often not only increases the time it takes for the turkey to cook, but the inconsistent heat also affects the skin. And while basting might keep the turkey moist, over-basting will prevent the skin from ever drying up enough to get crispy. In fact, this is the reason so many cooks believe basting a turkey is not just a waste of time, but also detrimental to the final product.

But an experiment by Mythical Kitchen on YouTube, where they basted one side of the turkey and left the other untouched, shows that basting a turkey at half-an-hour intervals definitely makes a difference. Not only is the skin on the basted side darker and shinier, the meat is juicier too.

You need to keep a few things in mind to cook the perfect turkey. When basting, we suggest opening the oven doors, taking the roasting pan out, and shutting the oven door as quickly as possible. This will ensure the temperature inside the oven doesn't drop too much (you can lose around 25 degrees in 30 seconds). The best basting liquids usually involve using the pan drippings and a broth, though citrus juices, wine and olive oil can all make a difference — you need some fat drippings to get the skin crispy. Another trick is to baste using butter in the last hour — as an alternative fat source. This will help get that lovely, dark brown color on the skin.