It's 2014 and Spatchcocking Is Still the Fastest, Easiest, Best Way to Roast a Turkey

Spatchcock your way to a perfect Thanksgiving turkey in record time. [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

This is a quick public service announcement. In the past, I've gone on record saying that spatchcocking your turkey—that is, cutting out the backbone and flattening it out before roasting—is the fastest, easiest, most foolproof way to a perfect Thanksgiving dinner.

Even now, a couple years later, I stand by those words 100%. With just a small investment of time before you start roasting (even less if you get your butcher to butterfly the bird for you), here are the advantages you get:

• Flat shape = even cooking. A traditional turkey ends up with breast meat that overcooks before the legs are done. With a butterflied bird, the whole thing finished cooking to perfection at the exact same time.
• All skin on top = juicier meat and crisper skin. With great exposure to heat and plenty of channels for rendering fat to drip away, a butterflied bird gets insanely crisp skin while helping to keep the meat underneath moist, all at the same time.
• It cooks in half the time. Because of its thin profile, a spatchcocked turkey can be roasted at very high temperatures, in the 450° range. It's also thinner, so it cooks much faster. You can get a Thanksgiving turkey from the fridge to the table in under 90 minutes!
• It makes better gravy. A butterflied bird provides you with the standard neck and giblets you get from all turkeys, but you'll also get yourself a nice flavorful backbone to enhance your gravy with.

Still don't believe me? Well you don't have to take my word for it. Let video-me-from-the-past walk you through the finer points!

For more details and a step-by-step photo walkthrough, check out our original story right here, or just jump straight to the recipe!