Should You Cover Turkey with Foil While Cooking? It’s Important to Know When

Study up on why, when—as well as when not to—tent your bird with foil.

When it comes to cooking a turkey, you have a lot of choices. Fresh or frozen? Free-range, organic, kosher, or conventional? To brine or not to brine? And we haven’t even dipped a toe into the topic of roasting vs. smoking vs. frying.

Since roasting is the most common cooking method for turkey by far, we’ve made this the year of deep-dive into little details that can make a big difference in terms of the flavor, juiciness levels, and overall enjoyment level surrounding your centerpiece. 

Besides how to truss a turkey and if you should add water to your turkey roasting pan, one of the most common questions we receive from readers this time of year is should you cover your turkey with foil while it’s cooking? 

The answer is “yes, but…” Read on for the dish from turkey experts about how to tap into the powers of foil to make this year’s turkey your best and juiciest yet

Meet Our Expert

• Sarah Brekke, M.S., Better Homes & Gardens Test Kitchen brand manager
• Michael R. Maddox, a Hawthorn Woods, Illinois-based Butterball Turkey Talk-Line expert and chef instructor/associate professor for Culinary Arts and Food Science at the College of DuPage
• Paolo Zambrano, vice president of culinary food production facilities for Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas

Should You Cover Your Turkey With Foil While It’s Cooking?

“Covering your turkey with foil for at least part of the roasting time is a common technique,” confirms Paolo Zambrano, vice president of culinary food production facilities for Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas. In fact, this is part of our Test Kitchen’s instructions for how to roast a standout turkey for Thanksgiving. 

According to Zambrano and Sarah Brekke, M.S., Better Homes & Gardens Test Kitchen brand manager, the benefits of tenting a turkey with foil include:

• Moisture retention: Foil helps trap steam, preventing the turkey—especially the breast meat—from drying out. The result is a juicier bird.
• Even cooking: Foil helps reflect some of the heat and prevents the breast from overcooking before the thighs are done. This allows the breast meat to cook to a safe temperature without the skin and legs getting overly brown or burnt.
• Quicker roast time: Foil can slightly reduce the total cook time required. 

The main drawback of covering a turkey with foil while it roasts: the skin may not get as crispy. This should only be an issue if you leave the foil on the entire time, which none of our experts recommend.

When to Cover Your Turkey With Foil

So now that you know why you should cover your turkey with foil, let’s dive into when to cover—and uncover—your bird.

You have two choices:

• Cover from the beginning, then remove the foil for the final 30 minutes of cooking. The foil helps the meat stay juicy. By ending with the turkey uncovered, “the skin will be able to brown and crisp up,” Brekke says, before resting, slicing, and serving.
• Cover the turkey if the breast has reached 165° F and the stuffing hasn’t come to 165° F and the thighs have not cooked to 175° F. “Leaving the turkey uncovered at the beginning allows the skin to darken to a beautiful golden-brown color,” explains Michael R. Maddox, a Hawthorn Woods, Illinois-based Butterball Turkey Talk-Line expert and chef instructor/associate professor for Culinary Arts and Food Science at the College of DuPage. By covering with foil near the end, if the temperature variances deem it necessary,, you will allow the stuffing and thighs enough time to come up to the ideal temperature without overcooking the breast meat.

Related: How to Cook Turkey in a Bag for the Juiciest Results

As a refresher, 165° F is the safe minimum internal temperature. Maddox and the Butterball team have found that diners tend to prefer turkey best at the following serving temperatures:

• Turkey breast: 170° F
• Turkey thigh: 180° F
• Stuffing (if you choose to cook it inside the turkey’s cavity): 165° F

Keep in mind that carryover cooking can cause the interior of your roast to rise 5° to 10° F after you remove it from the oven, so time your recipe accordingly.

Should You Cover a Turkey With Foil as it Rests?

Now that we’ve covered how to use foil while the turkey roasts, should you use it after while the bird rests for 15 to 25 minutes to stabilize the temperature and allow the protein to reabsorb the juices?

This comes down to personal preference. Brekke and her Test Kitchen colleagues prefer to rest the turkey uncovered, since tight foil coverage can “trap steam around the bird and soften that once-crispy, oh so delicious turkey skin,” Brekke says. “Consider saving the large piece of foil to use for covering dishes of leftovers.”

Maddox and Zambrano are less opposed to the idea of tenting your cooked turkey with foil and think it’s A-OK to help keep the meat warm; just be sure to loosely cover it (rather than sealing the edges around the roasting pan rim).

The 1 Time to Always Cover Turkey With Foil

As Brekke hinted to, you can keep that foil handy to cover any Thanksgiving leftovers to store in the refrigerator. 

While covering with foil during the original roasting process is optional—but highly recommended by our turkey experts for a portion of the time—there is another occasion in which you should always cover your turkey with foil. 

If you opt to reheat turkey in the oven, place similarly-sized pieces of sliced, chopped, or shredded turkey in a baking pan. Top the turkey with a little broth or gravy, then cover the pan with foil before baking at 350°F until the turkey reaches 165°F. (This usually takes about 30 minutes.) The foil “lid” will help prevent the meat from drying out as you cook it for round two.

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