I can donwod video sex gratisthink of countless practical reasons you'd want to air fry turkey for Thanksgiving. Maybe your oven crapped out and all you have left is an air fryer. Maybe you're a college kid — enjoy it, friend — and you're sticking around campus for the holiday. Or maybe you're having a Friendsgiving and your group isn't the culinary sort.
Whatever the case, don't fret. We've got you covered over here at Mashable's AirFryDay series, where we pretty much air fry anything and everything in the name of...dumb culinary science, I guess. Often we test viral TikTok recipes, since that's basically Ground Zero for the air fryer craze, but there was no trendy turkey recipe to reference here. This is a Tim Marcin Original (that's me, pal), coming at you. Before we get too far into the details, let's go over the basic ingredients and directions.
SEE ALSO: The best air fryers for making crispy food faster than the ovenIngredients
Turkey parts: OK, turkey parts is a gross-sounding phrase but the basic point is you cannot roast a wholeturkey, unless you find an exceptionally tiny bird. I air fried a turkey breast and drumstickall in one go, because that is what I was able to secure at my local grocery stores. A breast is going to be your best bet to find it sold alone, but you could also break down a whole bird into component parts to air fry, should you so desire.
Spices: Saltand pepperare non-negotiable. I also added garlic powder, dried parsley, and Herbs de Provence, which is a mix of dried herbs that go well with poultry.
Oil or nonstick spray
Optional brine ingredients: A brine will help produce a tasty result (more on that later) but is not mandatory. I used roughly 48 oz of apple juice, roughly 60 ounces ounces of water, two to three big handfuls of salt, one large handful of sugar, seven peeled cloves of garlic, whole peppercorns, three bay leaves, as well as fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme.
Recipe
Note: If you're not brining skip ahead to Step 4.Dump apple juice, water, garlic, peppercorns, and all the herbs into a pot large enough to fit all your turkey parts. Bring that mixture to a boil then add your salt and sugar. Waiting for a boil assures the seasonings will dissolve well. Let that mixture boil for a minute or two, then cut the heat. Let the brine cool and, if you so desire, add a bunch of ice. This will serve two purposes: cooling the brine and diluting it with water. I only added about 48 oz of water to my brine to accommodate the water from the ice at the end of the process.
When the brine has cooled to roughly room temperature, add your turkey parts to the pot. Cover the pot (I used plastic wrap) and put it in the fridge until you are ready to cook your bird. I let my turkey brine overnight, which felt ideal.
Remove the turkey from the brine and pat it dry with paper towels.
Let the turkey sit for at least 30 minutes to come closer to room temperature. (If you forget this step, oh well, just keep going. I've forgotten this many times.)
Season your bird. Whisk together salt, pepper, dried herbs, and garlic powder in a bowl to create a spice mix that'll assure even coverage. You will need a hefty bit of salt but don't go toocrazy because the brine is already relatively salty. Coat the bird with the mix. Every bit of turkey should be seasoned. Note: you can add pretty much anything you like here. I kept it simple but paprika, cayenne, onion powder, whatever you prefer/have, will probably taste great.
Preheat your air fryer to 350 degrees and one hour of cook time.
Load up as many of your turkey parts as possible in your air fryer. I was able to fit one boneless breast and one drumstick in my basket. Place the breast skin-side down to start.
Check the temperature after about 15 minutes. At this point I rotated my drumstick a quarter-turn to evenly cook all sides.
After about half an hour, flip the turkey breast so the skin side is up. The skin should look a little rendered but floppy. It'll crisp up now. Take this opportunity to get a temperature reading from the thickest point of all your pieces. If you don't have a meat thermometer, buy one — they make life so much easier and you don't have to worry about food poisoning. Turkey is fully cooked at 165 degrees. Your turkey will not be done yet, but it's good to keep an eye on it. For me, at this point, the thickest part of the breast was about 115 degrees while the drumstick was inching past 140 degrees.
Take another temperature reading with 15 minutes left in the cook. At this point, my drumstick was fully cooked with crispy skin. I removed it from the basket to let it rest on a cutting board.
Keep an eye on your turkey and regularly check its temperature. My turkey breast was fully cooked after about 57 minutes, with the thickest point on the breast registering a temperature of 169 degrees.
Let the turkey rest for at least fifteen minutes, then carve and enjoy.
Here is a pictures of my end result for the breast. As you can see, the skin is definitely crispy, if a little bit under rendered. This is not a perfect, golden turkey. But we're air frying here, not going for perfection, and I've most definitely had worse Thanksgiving turkey.
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Not perfect turkey. But pretty good. Credit: Mashable The details
Time to get down to the nitty gritty. The first thing you need to do is get your hands one some turkey. I had to venture to two different grocery stories — my local C-Town market and the closest Whole Foods — to find both drumsticks and a turkey breast. The Whole Foods had a ton of boneless breasts, however, so if you happen to live by a Whole Foods, that might be your best bet. It cost about 20 bucks for me to get a small breast.
SEE ALSO: The best air fryers for making crispy food faster than the ovenNow, you could buy a whole turkey and break it down into parts. But I assume if you're air frying a turkey, then you're looking for ease. The breaking down process will be a pain in the butt. A whole turkey from the grocery store is most likely going to be frozen, which means you'll have to thaw it first. That takes forever and a day. Then you'll need a very sharp knife and a steady hand to break down the bird into manageable parts. I'd for sure recommend finding parts you prefer at the store, if at all possible.
Mmmmm, raw turkey. Credit: Mashable The day before I wanted to cook my turkey, I put it in a brine. As the directions in the above recipe read, I brought all the ingredients to a boil, let it cool, then dropped the turkey in the brine. A couple of notes: feel free to customize your brine. I wouldn't worry too much about messing up your bird. Like some spiciness? Cut up some jalapeño and chuck it in there. Onion? Why not. I happened to have some tamari lying around, so I cut back on the salt and added it to the brine. Turned out great. If you don't want to brine at all? That's fine too. It won't be as tender as a brined bird but it'll be fine. We're air frying a turkey, dear reader, the traditional methods went out the window from the very beginning.
The next day, I removed my turkey from the fridge about an hour before I wanted to cook it. If you forget to do this, don't sweat it. It's not going to make such a huge difference that should delay your cook. But once your turkey is out of the fridge pat it dry with some paper towels then season the hell out of it. Absolutely cover the bird with your seasoning. Get it in between the skin and meat — everywhere. Again feel free to go wild with your seasoning. You should definitely include some salt, pepper, and herbs, in my opinion, but you do you. Or, if you're feeling overwhelmed and don't cook much, use a pre-mixed seasoning you got from the store. It'll turn out great.
Here's my breast and drumstick in the basket, all seasoned up.
Notice the skin side is down for the breast. Credit: Mashable If you wanted to stuff some softened butter in between the skin and meat of your turkey, you could do that now. When I cook a full turkey for Thanksgiving, that's what I'll do — but honestly since we're just air frying turkey parts for about an hour, I skipped that step.
Preheat your air fryer to 350 degrees and set the timer for one hour and wait for it to be ready. A few different recipes online all suggested 350 was the right temp for air frying a turkey breast, so I figured that was my best bet. This was my first adventure in air frying turkey and 350 seemed to do the trick.
Once the air fryer is preheated, guess what? You're ready to toss your turkey in the basket. You're going to want to fit as much as possible in the basket without overcrowding it. Leave enough room for airflow but don't give yourself any extra work either. A full, bone-in turkey breast will feed six to eight people, while the single breast, bone-out roast I got will feed three to four people.
Load up your turkey. If you secured a breast, put it skin side down for now. From there, I checked my turkey every 15 minutes or so with an instant read thermometer. Every time I took a temp reading, I rotated the drumstick a bit so the skin on the outside would cook evenly. At the halfway mark — or 30 minutes — I flipped the breast so it would be skin-side-up. The skin might look floppy and probably pulled away from the meat. That's fine. It'll crisp up in the second half of the cook, and there isn't much you could do to keep that skin in place beyond cooking a whole bird.
Again, keep taking temperature readings of your bird. And if you don't have a meat thermometer, again...please get one. It will save you so much hassle and guesswork. Once any piece of turkey reads 165 degrees Fahrenheit at its thickest point, it is fully cooked. My drumstick finished in roughly 40 minutes. The breast took about 57 minutes.
The verdict? The drumstick cooked up great. The skin was crispy all around. The meat was pretty dang juicy, too. I was surprised how well it turned out. I think the brine helped keep things tender and flavorful. But it's also super difficult to dry out a drumstick because it has so much skin and a massive bone that help keeps the meat moist.
And here is a close up of the drumsticks' skin.
Credit: Mashable Here is the turkey breast, unsliced and fully cooked. Again this took about 57 minutes and it cooked to about 169 degrees at its thickest point. To be honest, there is a bit too much char on the outside. That fact was, however, unavoidable. The exterior was always going to get cooked pretty thoroughly, since we needed to get the interior up to 165 degrees even as the high air fryer temps blasted the exterior.
A full breast, fully cooked. Credit: Mashable Here's what the breast looked like, all sliced up.
Credit: Mashable While the exterior of the breast was pretty charred, I was pleased with how the breast turned out. The inside was pretty juicy — I credit the brine for helping here — and it tasted great. It had a nice salty kick while not being overpowering. The sweetness of the apple juice mixed well with the herbs in the rub. The meat's texture wasn't the super dried-out breast you might've had a few times at Thanksgiving. It was not as good as if I'd spent hours upon hours cooking a whole bird as best I can. But it was not somuch worse. The char and relatively juicy interior reminded me of a skinless chicken breast that was grilled well.
The overall verdict: I was happy with the result. If you're one of those folks at the top of this story who needs or wants to air fry turkey, then I think you're not going to be disappointed. In fact, if you don't cook much, I think air frying pieces of turkey is actually about as fool-proof as any recipe I've seen. You'll get a pretty tasty result and all you'll have to wash is a nonstick air fryer. That's a Thanksgiving miracle.