EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) – It’s time again for cooks to take a crack at the Thanksgiving turkey. We spoke with store manager Phil Cook at Hy-Vee in Eau Claire about some tips and tricks to cook the perfect bird.
“If you’re doing a frozen turkey and the average is between 12 and 16 pounds, you need to get that guy into the refrigerator by Sunday to have that ready for Thursday.
“I like to do a real simple dry brine on my turkey. That’s just covering it in salt, putting it in the fridge overnight. So that way, when you’re cooking that bird the next day, crisps up the skin but keeps the moisture in because that’s really important. Nobody wants the dry turkey, right?
“You’re going to want to get a meat thermometer and you want to make sure you insert that at the thickest part without touching a bone. 165, it’s time to pull that bird. Don’t trust the little popper. I know we all have them, I know we all like them. But don’t trust that. Trust a real meat thermometer to make sure it’s good.
“Once that bird comes out, before you carve it up, let it rest 30 minutes. Let it reabsorb that moisture because if you take that bird right out and cut it open, that moisture is going to come out all over the cutting board. It’s going to dry that turkey out even faster. This is, you know, our Super Bowl.
“If you’re not into cooking the bird, we’ve got the meal packs right here in the store too. So we’re still taking orders for those. And then we’ve also got a great budget idea back in our meat department with a $30 meal deal. So, it has all the fixings and everything else. You can come right in and we can just solve that for you.”
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