Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
This back-to-basics roast turkey recipe is a great place for beginners to start, and the results are pretty dang fabulous: crisp skin and evenly cooked, juicy meat, without butterflying, flipping, trussing, or fussing. One trick that sets this recipe apart: A baking steel or baking stone is preheated in the oven, so when the roasting pan with the bird is added, the heat stored in the steel or stone helps kickstart the cooking of the turkey’s legs, which need to reach a higher temperature than the breast.
