Stick a Turkey on the Grill and Enjoy an Easy Meal

Why it never occured to me to stick a turkey on the grill, I'll never know. A friend from High School posted on Facebook around Thanksgiving that she grilled her turkey. I was intrigued.

We purchased an additional turkey at Thanksgiving intending to deep fry it on Christmas. Our Christmas plans got changed and the turkey remained in the freezer.

This morning I did a little more research and found out that Elizabeth Karmel, the author of my favorite grilling book ("Taming the Flame"), had a website that had details on how to grill a turkey. Here are the instructions. It seemed to be too easy to be true. I'm happy to report it was as easy as they claimed.

The rule of thumb is 13 minutes per pound. I put it in a disposable roasting pan (doubled up for safety). Although not called for in their recipe, I did do some injecting with Tony Chachere's butter injection. Brushed it down with olive oil, sprinkled it with Kosher salt and a little black pepper. Set my grill to 375. I used the indirect method. In other words, the flame is on both sides of the pan but not directly under it. Don't open the grill during the cooking time. It took 2 hrs. 45 minutes for my 13 pound turkey. I let it sit for 15 minutes covered in foil off the heat to let it get juicy again. Boy was it ever juicy. Check out the picture below.

Conclusion: I still think a fried turkey tastes best, but this was far easier, safer and much more inexpensive (peanut oil is crazy expensive). Using the grill would leave my oven free for other dishes. I will have 4 meals from this turkey. I'm thinking turkey pot pie, turkey noodle soup, turkey sandwiches... the list goes on. I'm also thinking this would be fantastic in the summer. It would keep the kitchen cool and I could make some cool weather meals from the leftover turkey (cold turkey salad, sandwiches, turkey primevera, etc.)