Spatchcocked Roasted Turkey with Homemade Dry Brine

Spatchcocking a turkey drastically reduces the cooking time of your holiday meal + helps the white & dark meat both stay juicy while cooking!

Spatchcocking sounds like a funny word, but it’s an incredibly efficient way to prepare turkey (or chicken!) for quick, even cooking.

Gone are the days of waiting allllll day for your turkey to roast in the oven. No more worrying about overcooking the white meat while waiting for the dark meat to cook through.

This method is a total game-changer and one that we’ve used exclusively for Thanksgiving for several years now.

It can seem intimidating at first (yes, you’re going to need to cut the backbone out of the turkey). But this post is here to walk you through the process so you can feel confident when it’s time to make your Turkey Day dinner at any time of the year.

Jump To:

• 🦃 Why spatchcock a turkey?
• 🥣 Benefits of using a dry brine
• 📝 Ingredients and kitchen equipment
• 🍗 A few notes about giblets
• ✅ How to spatchcock a turkey
• ⏲ How long to cook a spatchcocked turkey
• 📖 Recipe

🦃 Why spatchcock a turkey?

• Spatchcocking enables your cook time to be reduced by about half, which is especially welcome if you’re making turkey for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other holiday meal.
• The white meat and dark meat finish cooking at roughly the same time. That means there’s less of a chance of ending up with dry breast meat.
• You can roast the meat at a higher temperature. And since all of the skin is on top, you achieve crispier, more delicious skin.
• The discarded backbone adds rich flavor to homemade turkey gravy or stock.

🥣 Benefits of using a dry brine

When we spatchcock a turkey (or chicken!), we also like to use a dry brine to season and tenderize the meat while keeping it moist and juicy.

• The spices have more of a direct impact on flavoring the meat.
• It helps keep the skin crispy.
• You’ll get a deep, rich, natural turkey flavor. Injected saline solutions often mask these flavors.

My homemade dry brine seasoning blend recipe is super easy to put together, and you can make a big batch and keep it in the pantry until you’re ready to use it.

Note that my recipe makes around 1 1/2 cups of seasoning, but you’ll only need 1 tablespoon per 4 pounds of meat that you want to dry brine.

There’s lots more info about this in my dry brine post, so head over there if you want the lowdown.

It is important to note that if you’re using a dry brine, you want to choose a turkey that hasn’t been previously injected with a saline solution, so be sure to read the label.

You can also check out this article from Serious Eats on how to brine a turkey or chicken (they cover both wet brining and dry brining).

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📝 Ingredients and kitchen equipment

Here’s everything you’ll need to spatchcock your poultry. It’s pretty minimal, but having these tools will make the process of breaking down the turkey or chicken much easier (see recipe card below for ingredient amounts and full directions):

• Dry brine seasoning mix (check out our favorite dry brine recipe here)
• Whole turkey or chicken (preferably one that hasn’t been injected with a saline solution)
• A sharp knife for scoring the skin
• Poultry shears for removing the backbone
• Fish bone tweezers or clean pliers (not necessary, but incredibly helpful for removing any feathers that may still be hanging out in the skin of your turkey)
• Paper towels
• Baking powder (look for an aluminum-free variety when shopping)
• 9×13 baking dish – I find this helpful for keeping the meat contained in the refrigerator during the dry brining process.
• Baking sheet – a half sheet pan size works well to hold large pieces of meat flat while roasting
• Dual-probe thermometer for monitoring the temperature of both white and dark meat

✅ How to spatchcock a turkey

Roll up your sleeves, because prepping a turkey (or chicken) for spatchcocking is a bit of work. It’s not difficult, but it takes muscle for sure, especially if you have a larger piece of poultry.

Spatchcocking is basically butterflying the piece of meat so it lays open nice and flat for even cooking.

I’m going to walk you through the entire process with photos of each step so you can feel confident moving forward in your own kitchen.

Remove the bones, giblets, and feathers

Turkeys often have the neck bone and/or a bag of giblets (heart, gizzards, liver) stuffed inside of them. Growing up, I remember these bags always getting tossed. But hang on to those bits!

Pop them into a freezer bag or container and save them to make some seriously delicious homemade turkey gravy. Trust me! The added depth of flavor is absolutely incredible.

Up until a few years ago, I only ever saw the bag of turkey parts stuffed into the main cavity of the turkey. But some, like the one in the photos for this post, have a bag stashed in the neck-end as well.

Be sure to check both – you don’t want to wind up baking that in with your meat.

There are also sometimes still a few feathers (or bits of feathers) stuck in the skin of the turkey. You can sometimes remove them by hand, but I find that fish bone tweezers or clean pliers work best.

Things can get slippery, and having something to get a good grip on the feathers helps with easy removal.

Dry the skin of the turkey well

Next up, dry your turkey well with paper towels. Make sure you get the exterior as dry as you can, including spots like under the wings.

The dryer it is, the better. I’m all for reducing kitchen waste whenever possible, but some jobs are just best left for paper towels. This is one of those times (but, bonus – paper towels are compostable!).

Score the skin and remove the backbone

Once your turkey is dry, flip it so it’s backbone-side up on your work surface. Use a sharp knife (I like using a fillet knife here) to score the skin all the way from the neck to the tail along the outer edge of both sides of the backbone.

We’ve skipped this step in the past, but no longer. Poultry shears are great for cutting through bones, but they don’t do a great job of cutting through skin. Having the skin moving around while you’re trying to cut through the backbone makes the work more difficult.

Once you’ve scored the skin, use your poultry shears to cut through the bones all the way down both sides of the backbone. This can take some muscle, especially if it’s a big turkey. But you can do it!

I like to save the backbone to make turkey stock or gravy. I find that cutting it in half or thirds once it’s removed is helpful for when you go to store and/or cook with it later.

Note here that you can freeze the bones for later use. Just thaw them before proceeding to make turkey stock or gravy.

Crack the breastbone and apply the dry brine

This is the last part of turkey prep that takes some muscle. You need to flip the turkey over and break the breastbone. To do this, place one hand in the center of the breast, then place your other hand on top.

Press firmly until you feel (and hear!) the breastbone pop and break. Depending on your size and the size of your turkey, this can take considerable effort. I often lean in with most of my body weight to get it to break.

Breaking the breastbone ensures that your turkey can lay nice and flat for even cooking. When turkeys are cooked whole, that big, dense ball of meat takes a long time to cook. But with a nice, flat layer, it happens much more quickly.

Are you still with me? It’s time to start applying the seasoning!

If the skin of your turkey isn’t dry, pat it with paper towels again. Using your fingers, gently lift the skin of the turkey away from the meat. You’re going to need to reach in and use your hands to poke around to create a pocket between the skin and the flesh.

This usually takes a little finagling, but do the best you can, finding any areas that you can work your way underneath the skin.

Take some of the dry brine spice mixture and rub it underneath the skin. You want to try to get an even-ish layer, but you don’t need to measure things precisely here.

Flip the turkey back over and dry out the cavity with paper towels again if needed. Sprinkle a little more of the dry brine seasoning mixture onto the cavity side and rub it around to coat.

Final seasoning for a crispy skin

Pat the skin dry once more, then sprinkle a teaspoon of baking powder all over the skin. Rub it to really spread it around, making sure to get places like underneath the wings.

The addition of baking powder aids in getting that perfectly crispy skin once you roast the turkey.

Add the remainder of your dry brine spice mixture to the skin side of the turkey and rub it all over to coat evenly. Again, remember that you’re only using a total of one tablespoon per four pounds of turkey.

So, for example, the turkey in the photographs was 16 pounds, so I used 4 tablespoons of the mixture. You don’t have to be super precise here, but try to stay in the ballpark so your meat isn’t overly salty.

Refrigerate your prepped turkey for 1-4 days

To save on refrigerator space, I like to then transfer my seasoned turkey to a 9×13 baking dish. Clear out a little space around your refrigerator so that nothing is touching it, and leave it alone in the refrigerator.

We always try to aim to brine our turkey for 4 days, but things happen and schedules can get interrupted. One day is the minimum amount of time you’ll need for the dry brine to start working its magic, up to a maximum of 4.

Is leaving poultry uncovered in the refrigerator safe?

This process is similar to dry-aging steak and is done with the meat uncovered in the refrigerator.

You need to make sure you have plenty of space around the turkey for this process to take place without the worry of contaminating other things in your refrigerator.

As long as the turkey isn’t touching anything, all should go well.

But if the thought of leaving poultry out in the open in your refrigerator is worrisome, you can cover the turkey with cheesecloth. This way it can still get the air circulation while it brines.

Time to cook!

When it’s go-time, preheat your oven. The cook time and temperature will vary based on the size of your turkey (see chart below). Your best bet is to monitor the temperature as it’s cooking.

We love using a dual-probe thermometer for this, as you can monitor the temperature of the breast meat and the leg/thigh at the same time. You can also use an instant-read thermometer to check the temperature periodically during roasting.

Transfer your brined turkey to a large, rimmed baking sheet. Place probes in the center of the light and dark meat to monitor the temperature of both while it roasts.

Try to be sure you’re probing the meat in the center of the breast and thigh. If you’re touching bone or are too close to the edge, the thermometers won’t read properly.

If the temperatures are changing at drastically different rates, it’s likely that they aren’t placed properly. No big deal, just take it out, readjust, and pop it back into the oven.

⏲ How long to cook a spatchcocked turkey

Here are some general guidelines for cook time and oven temperature, based on the weight of your turkey:

Turkey Weight	Oven Temperature	Cook Time
8-12 pounds	325°F	2 3/4 to 3 hours
12-14 pounds	450°F	2 to 2 1/4 hours
12-14 pounds	425°F	2 1/4 to 2 1/2 hours
15-17 pounds	450°F	2 3/4 to 3 hours
15-17 pounds	425°F	3 to 3 1/4 hours
18-20 pounds	450°F	3 1/4 to 3 1/2 hours
18-20 pounds	425°F	3 1/2 to 3 3/4 hours
21-23 pounds	450°F	3 3/4 to 4 hours
21-23 pounds	425°F	4 to 4 1/4 hours
24 pounds	450°F	4 to 4 1/4 hours
24 pounds	425°F	4 1/4 to 4 1/2 hours

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