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Love Thanksgiving, but dread the hours it takes to roast a whole turkey? Our oven-roasted turkey with barbecue sauce, adapted from Living the Gourmet, features a succulent assortment of skin-on turkey pieces — including legs, breast and wings — that are roasted to perfection in just 45 minutes!
Fabulously faster to the table than a whole roasted bird, and off-the-hook delicious, this holiday turkey dish is sumptuously flavored with an herbed compound butter and a cup of your favorite barbecue sauce. Served with a colorful array of roasted rainbow carrots and stalks of celery, your family and friends will be thrilled to dig into a lighter holiday meal, and you’ll be excited to make a flavorful and fuss-free Thanksgiving dinner.
ALSO TRY: Mayonnaise roasted turkey
Butter really does make everything better! The turkey pieces in this recipe are slathered with a compound butter embedded with minced fresh herbs — rosemary, oregano, thyme and sage — and dried ginger. The luscious butter fat serves as a tasty vehicle to drive the herb and ginger flavors into the turkey skin as it cooks. As a yummy bonus, the extra fat from the buttered skin drips down into the roasting pan and infuses rich flavors into the roasted vegetables. The barbecue sauce is yet another flavorful bonus that makes this Thanksgiving turkey a welcome change from the traditional bird.
Vegetable variations: Rainbow carrots and celery offer a colorful side dish, but you can roast other vegetables that you have on hand. Parsnips, fingerling potatoes, sweet potatoes, celery root and onions can be added or swapped in. Just make sure you slice or dice the ingredients to the same size to ensure even cooking.
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Make a compound butter rub
Compound butter is a fancy term for softened butter mixed with other ingredients. This herby compound butter is rubbed on the turkey. In a small bowl, combine butter, rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, ginger, salt and pepper.
Rub the herbed compound butter on the turkey
Pat the turkey pieces dry with paper towels. Rub the butter mixture all over the turkey pieces. The butter rub will flavor and moisten the turkey pieces while they are roasting in the oven.
Roast the turkey
Set a roasting rack in a roasting pan and add the broth. Place the carrots and celery in the broth and set the turkey pieces on the rack. The broth will cook the vegetables and keep the turkey moist as it roasts. Roast the turkey, uncovered, for a total of 45 minutes.
Baste the turkey halfway through the cooking time
At around 20 to 25 minutes, remove the roasting pan from the oven and baste the turkey pieces generously with the barbecue sauce.
Tent the turkey with foil
At the halfway point of roasting, loosely cover the roasting pan with aluminum foil to keep the turkey from over-browning. The turkey is done when the internal temperature reaches 165F. For the moistest meat, let the turkey rest for 15 minutes to allow the juices to redistribute through the meat.
Serve with carrots and celery
Serve the juicy, flavor-loaded turkey pieces with the colorful assortment of fork-tender carrots and celery.
Succulent and juicy!
Caramelized barbeque sauce makes for a decadent crispy skin
Hard to believe how quickly this turkey cooks up
A unique twist on the traditional turkey day!
Oven-roasted turkey with barbecue sauce
Yield 6 servings
Ingredients
Rub
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened
- 1/2 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary1/2 tablespoon minced fresh oregano
- 1/2 tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh sage
- 1 teaspoon dried ginger
- 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup favorite barbecue sauce
Turkey
- 7 to 8 assorted pieces of turkey (legs, breast and/or wings) with skin on
- 8 carrots, peeled, cut into 3-inch pieces
- 8 celery stalks, cut into 3-inch pieces
- 1 cup chicken broth
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F.
- In a small bowl, make the compound butter by combining butter, rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, ginger, salt and pepper, mixing together until well-blended.
- Pat turkey pieces dry with paper towels.
- Rub herbed compound butter all over turkey pieces.
- Set roasting rack in roasting pan. Pour broth in roasting pan.
- Place carrots and celery in broth.
- Set turkey pieces on a rack in roasting pan.
- Roast for 45 minutes.
- Halfway through the cooking process, baste turkey pieces with barbecue sauce.
- Loosely cover roasting pan with aluminum foil and finish roasting.
- Cook until internal temperature reaches 165F.
- Set turkey aside to rest for 15 minutes.
- Serve turkey pieces with carrots and celery.
Courses Main dish
