Thanksgiving can be stressful; after all, it’s hard to get a complete dinner out for a starving multitude! These cooking tools and accessories will help make your turkey cooking easy while helping you cook the juiciest and most flavorful turkey ever!
Remote Meat Thermometer
Cooking your turkey to temperature, and not to time, is the best tip we can give you to make sure that your turkey doesn’t dry out. We strongly recommend using a remote meat thermometer that you can put in your turkey and run the cable to the outside of the oven so you can check the temperature without opening the oven and letting heat out.
This Thermoworks model is our #1 recommendation. It’s well-priced, accurate, and durable, plus you can use it all year long for lots of recipes. If you don’t have one of these, get it now!
V-Shaped Roasting Rack
A v-shaped roasting rack will elevate your turkey over the roasting pan as it cooks in the oven. This lets heat distribute around the entire turkey for faster, more even cooking while also letting drippings fall onto the roasting pan to use in gravy or other recipes. Learn more about this tip in our Traditional Thanksgiving Turkey recipe.
We like this extra-large, heavy-duty rack because it doesn’t fall over, cleans easily, and will fit up to a 20-pound turkey. We’ve had ours for 7 years and used it for over 20 turkeys, as well as many other meals throughout the year, and it still looks brand new!
These racks are also useful if you want to smoke a turkey or any other item throughout the year!
Ceramic Baking Stone
Placing and preheating a ceramic baking stone in your oven is another tip we recommend in our Traditional Thanksgiving Turkey recipe. By putting this stone in the oven, you create radiative heat to help cook your turkey evenly. By heating up this stone ahead of time, you’ll create a blast of heat to roast the parts of your turkey that need it the most without cooking the parts that need it the least – like the breast!
These baking stones are also must-haves for delicious pizza, perfectly-baked bread, and many other uses throughout the year. There are many options available, but we like this one because of its superior build quality and oven and storage-friendly rectangular shape.
Meat Injector
If you want to fill your turkey with lots of flavor, injecting it with a butter and herb solution is a terrific solution. We also recommend injecting your turkey if you’re smoking or deep-frying your turkey. Meat injectors are inexpensive and are a useful tool for making flavorful family meals year-round.
This stainless steel kit comes with everything you need to inject your turkey and keep the injector clean. There are single-use plastic kits available, but for a little more money, you can get this higher-quality kit that you can use over and over again.
Poultry Shears
We love spatchcocking a turkey to cook it. By cutting out the turkey’s backbone and then pressing it flat, you help it cook quickly and evenly. We can spatchcock a turkey at your request, or you can do it at home, but you need a good pair of poultry shears.
To get through the thick bones of a turkey, you’ll want a spring-loaded, heavy-duty version of shears, not your normal kitchen shears. These are great to use year-round for all sorts of kitchen uses like cutting vegetables, parting out roast chicken, and more!
Electric Knife
Carving a turkey can be intimidating, although a sharp knife and following these step-by-step instructions will help you get it done. If you really want to make your life easy and ensure you get the job done quickly, however, an electric carving knife is just what you need!
This Cuisinart model is reliable and straightforward to use. What else could you want in a tool that’s made to make your life easy?
That’s it for our Thanksgiving cooking tool and accessory recommendations. If you use our links to purchase any of these items, we’ll get a small commission, which we appreciate. If you can find these items locally and support other small businesses, we would love that as well, but if you want the items delivered, using our link helps support us!
If you haven’t ordered your turkey yet, you can reserve one of our fresh Thanksgiving turkeys from either Country Day in Minnesota or Alden Hills in Walworth, Wisconsin by stopping in the store, calling us at 262-248-3339 option 3, or using our online order form.
Thanks for reading – we’ll see you soon at Lake Geneva Country Meats!
*Prices are current as of publishing and your price may be different.
