The first time I saw an oven bag in action was well more than a decade ago when I arrived at my husband’s childhood home to find my sister-in-law prepping our Thanksgiving turkey breast, packing in lemon, apples and onions along with the meat. It sort of blew my mind.
We continued to use the bags on and off throughout the years, but it wasn’t until I volunteered to develop the whole turkey recipe for our package on breaking the mold of traditional holiday recipes that I put pen to paper to create specific instructions.
Get the recipe: Turkey in a Bag With Lemon and Herbs
Using a bag has quite a few advantages, but the biggest are how much it can reduce the cook time and how it keeps the meat moist and juicy. In my testing, the bag shaved off almost half the expected per-pound cook time, though manufacturer Reynolds said its testing showed closer to a 30 percent reduction.
Advertisem*nt
Skip to end of carousel
Come cook with us
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and with The Post’s new Recipes experience there are more than 10,000 tested recipes at your fingertips.
End of carousel
We know how much oven space is at a premium on Thanksgiving, though, so anything in that range is a plus in my book. And if dry, stringy turkey has been the bane of your existence, the moist heat of roasting in the bag — more like steaming, really — is a game changer.
If you’re not familiar with oven bags or find the whole concept just weird, you’re not alone. While Reynolds debuted the bags in 1971, plenty of people I talked to had no idea they existed. “They were developed to speed up the cooking time and as a way for home cooks to get a perfect turkey every time,” says Charry E. Brown, test kitchen expert at Reynolds Consumer Products. The bags are made of heat-resistant nylon that is FDA-compliant for cooking. They are also BPA- and phthalate-free, Brown says.
Part of the joy of cooking in the bag is how simple it is: Fill it, drop it in a roasting pan and cook. I didn’t want to complicate things (no brining, please!), but I wondered whether I could put a small twist on the method that would make it a little more special. So I followed my sister-in-law’s lead, stuffing the turkey cavity and bag with lemon, chunks of apple, wedges of onion, a whole head’s worth of garlic and a bouquet of my backyard sage and rosemary. Much as you accomplish in packet cooking — or en papillote, as the French say — these aromatics gently infused the meat, but especially the juices, with their flavor.
Advertisem*nt
Ready to give the turkey in a bag a whirl? Here are some keys to success.
- I highly recommend using a leave-in probe thermometer, if you have one or are willing to purchase it, particularly if it’s a model you can set an alarm on to alert you when it hits the target temperature (the USDA recommends 165 degrees for food safety, and in my tests with the bag, this was perfect). Because the turkey finishes much faster than you may be used to, it’s helpful to monitor the internal temperature as you cook. At the very least, start checking the temperature with a digital thermometer 20 to 30 minutes before the end of the recommended cook time. My recipe specifies that a 10- to 14-pound turkey will be done in 1½ to 2 hours, though, of course, ovens vary, which is why you need to pay attention. Even if you happen to overshoot the mark, as I did on my first test or two, the meat will probably still be moister than birds overcooked in bag-free roasting.
- Be sure to shake at least 1 tablespoon of flour into the bag. “This step protects against superheating liquids and helps any water boil off and vaporize in the bag,” Brown says. Any type of flour is fine, and you can also choose from such gluten-free alternatives as cornmeal, almond flour, rice flour, potato flour or cornstarch. Making gravy with the juices? Feel free to use more flour to help with thickening later.
- Don’t forget to create slits in the bag, or else you risk it bursting! Reynolds recommends six ½-inch slits.
- The maximum oven temperature for the Reynolds bags is 400 degrees. Don’t go higher than that or use the broiler, and don’t let the bag touch the heating elements, lowering the oven rack as needed.
- The bag will still allow the skin to brown, especially if you oil the turkey, as my recipe suggests. But it will not be as crispy as other cooking methods. If desired, you can cut open the bag in the last 30 minutes to get better browning, Brown says. Just make sure the drippings don’t spill out and burn.
- Pay attention to what kind of turkey you buy. If the label says it’s been pre-brined, use less salt than called for. In my recipe, that’s dropping it from 2 tablespoons to 1 tablespoon fine salt.
- Don’t toss those juices! They’re delectable enough to serve on their own alongside the turkey, after straining. Or use them as the base for your gravy or the broth for an amazing leftovers soup.
Turkey cooked in a bag may not have that spent-too-much-time-in-the-sun, allover bronzed look of the birds you see in, say, a Norman Rockwell painting. But it still comes out looking prettier than I even expected. The flourish of bringing the whole bird to the table is overrated in my opinion, anyway — let the people eat! Carve up the bird in the kitchen, arrange it prettily on a platter (or chuck it onto a sheet pan, if you’re me) and wait for the oohs and ahs to come in about this being your juiciest turkey yet.
Get the recipe: Turkey in a Bag With Lemon and Herbs
