I know for many people cooking Thanksgiving dinner is stressful. It’s stressful in a sticks and bricks kitchen with lots of space, a big oven, and a full-size refrigerator. Add in the challenges of cooking a huge meal in a tiny kitchen, and the stress levels start rising.

How to Manage Stress Cooking for Thanksgiving

Don’t forget, this is supposed to be a holiday about giving thanks while enjoying a nice meal. If the stress is too much, you can always:

• Go out for dinner — many restaurants, especially in hotels, offer Thanksgiving dinners.
• Order a prepared turkey dinner with all the fixings — you can find packages at local grocery stores and restaurants.
• Celebrate Thanksgiving with a less traditional dinner — who says paella or grilled steaks aren’t festive?

If you want tradition, you’ll want to be sure to plan and take into consideration your minimal space and how you will get everything done. And, you may need to think outside of the box about how you used to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Eleven Ways to Cook A Turkey

Whole Bird Roasted — you’ll need a pretty big oven, 15-17 minutes per pound for an unstuffed turkey or 20-22 minutes per pound for a stuffed turkey at 325. Back in the days of living in a house, I followed Alton Brown’s recipe.

Spatchcock Roasted — you won’t need quite as big of an oven, and it won’t take quite as much time as a whole bird. Do count on about 6 minutes per pound for this butterflied whole turkey at 375. The technique explained by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats looks excellent.

Crockpot/Slow Cooker — you’ll need a 10-quart slow cooker for an 8-10 pound turkey. Count on 3-4 hours on high or 7-8 hours on low. If you want crispy skin, you could always put it in the oven or on the grill to try to crisp the skin up. CafeDelites.com’s recipe seems to sum it up pretty well.

Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker — you’ll need the big version of the Instant Pot for this and a small turkey. Six minutes per pound + 10-20 minutes natural release. If I were going to cook my turkey in the IP, I would generally follow the recipe from Bacon Is Magic.

Sous Vide/Stove Top — this is my preferred method, and I use my Anova sous vide. I cook the legs using this Chefsteps recipe. For the breasts, I follow this Chefsteps recipe. You’ll need 24 hours to cook the legs, not including the time to sear them before and after their water bath. And if I had a Blackstone griddle, as I know many campers do, I would use it to sear the turkey legs.

Sous Vide/Oven (Whole Turkey) — this is also a possibility; just remember that you’ll need a big oven to get your turkey in. Sous vide time on this recipe is 24 hours and you’ll need an additional 30-40 minutes in the oven to brown it.

Gas Grill — you’ll need a grill-safe pan in which to cook your turkey with some liquid. But you’ll have a cooked bird in about 3 1/2 hours at 400, according to this AllRecipes technique.

Pellet Smoker — Susie from HeyGrillHey suggests 30 minutes per pound at 225 for birds 15 pounds or less. Just be sure that your bird will fit on your pellet smoker.

Charcoal Grill — I trust Weber’s technique for roasting a whole bird on a charcoal grill. You’ll need 2 1/2 or 3 hours for the bird to cook.

Air Fryer — you probably could cook a whole turkey in your air fryer part by part, but I would consider this if I was cooking a turkey breast only. Delish.com’s recipe suggests 40 minutes at 375 for a 2-pound breast.

Electric Roaster — if you need to cook a big turkey and you like the idea of set-it-and-forget-it, this might be the perfect way to cook your holiday turkey. Food.com’s recipe using an electric roaster seems like a simple and easy way to get a whole roast turkey on your table.

What Temperature For Turkey To Be Done?

Most resources, including the USDA, say that you should cook your turkey to 165 degrees, the same as chicken. But don’t forget that safe consumption of poultry is about pasteurization and lower temperatures are okay provided the meat stays at or above that temperature for a specific amount of time. I like the FDA chart that The Culinary Pro has on their website:

By this chart, you can see that a turkey only has to achieve 150 degrees and sustain 150 degrees for 3.8 minutes for it to be safe to eat.

How to Check the Temperature of Turkey

I don’t suggest relying on the pop-up thermometer that turkeys often come with. I highly recommend using an instant read thermometer to check your turkey in three places:

• the deepest part of the breast
• the joint between the thigh and the body
• the joint between the drumstick and the thigh

Other Thanksgiving Time Savers

• Prepare stuffing and vegetable dishes up to the point that you put them in the oven the day before.
• Prepare your gravy a day or two in advance using stock made from the neck and vegetables or purchased turkey stock. You can always add some drippings from your turkey when you heat the prepared gravy to serve.
• Bake pie(s) the night before.
• Purchase bread or rolls from a bakery. (Be sure to get extra for a delicious leftover turkey sandwich.)

Schedule Your Time

Whatever you decide to do, I suggest that you have a schedule for yourself to get it all done. A couple of years ago, when I was preparing to make my first Thanksgiving dinner in our motorhome, I made this plan to go along with my menu. While I’m sure that I’ll change a couple of things for this year’s Thanksgiving, I love that I have this as a starting point for Thanksgiving in the RV.

Most importantly, relax! Remember that it’s one dinner and as one of my favorite sayings goes, “If you don’t like the food, you can always drink more wine!”