How to Cook Two Turkeys in One Oven Recipe

The 3 Rules of Thanksgiving

1. Everyone must have enough turkey
2. There must be leftovers
3. There must be leftovers

This will satisfy both rules 1 and 2. If you feel this is too much turkey, remember the rule that there must be leftovers. Say it with me now, there must be leftovers.

So your local grocery store has 14 pound turkeys, which based on our equation mean you can feed 8, but you have more than 8 people coming! What are your options? Cook a ham? Bah! I suggest a far better alternative. 2 turkeys, 1 oven.

The Concept

Drawing from recipes that call for cooking a turkey covered first at a low temperature, then finishing uncovered with a blasting temperature. We will modify this strategy to allow 2 turkeys to cook by doing their slow cooking turkey 1, slow cooking turkey 2, then blasting turkey 1 and then blasting turkey 2.

Remember turkey needs time to rest after it is fully cooked! I suggest 1 hour at least.

Limitations to Consider

Depending on how hungry everyone is, turkey 2 will not have as much time to rest

Bigger turkeys take longer to finish. Consider getting one big turkey, and one little turkey to minimize the time between their preparation.

Why this works

You can also note that after you take out a turkey during the low temperature cook, the turkey will still be cooking for a while, but will be colder from the duration of the other turkey's blast.

How

After washing (and hopefully brining) your turkey, tuck the legs and wings and cover it in foil.

Cook it in the oven for 275F/135C for 10 minutes per pound.

When that is done you'll take out turkey 1, and have it sit out while you put in turkey 2.

Cook turkey 2 under the same rule. When turkey 2's allotted time is done, make sure turkey 1 is uncovered and basted with butter.

Take out turkey 2 and place turkey 1 back in at 350F/175C. Baste every 15-30 mins until there is an internal temperature of 330F/165C. Assume the blasts will take 90 minutes.

If you're planning out your day you'll need to do some math.

Here we have 2 Turkeys

Assuming we want to start dinner at 6:30 as well as have a 45-90 minute rest period after cooking we can follow this schedule

The Schedule

I can vouch for this method. If you have brined the turkey properly, I can't promise you the best skin, but I can promise you incredibly moist and delicious meat.