How to Spatchcock Turkey: with Pictures

This turkey is spatchcocked, injected, sausage stuffed, and smoked all on my pellet grill. Spatchcocking, or butterflying, (spatchcocked is way more fun to say than butterflied) is the central theme to this turkey recipe. Feel free to use any of the other tips below for your butterflied turkey, but the main tenet is “How to Spatchcock Turkey: With Pictures.” Also, this is my actual Thanksgiving Turkey that I fed 20 people one year on Turkey Day. 

The first time someone asked me if I spatchcocked my bird, I said, “HEY! What I do in the privacy of my own home is my business!” And then I googled what it meant. I found out that I had not actually spatchcocked my turkey (or chicken) but the more I read about it the more I was wanted to try it. This method really speeds up the cooking process while keeping the bird juicy.

That frees me up to get the house in shape for all those family and friends on Thanksgiving. Scroll down for How to Spatchcock Turkey: with Pictures.

And I actually did this exact recipe for my guests for Thanksgiving along with this Grilled Pineapple Rum Ham.

A Pellet Grill on Thanksgiving is Magic

I smoked this bird on my Green Mountain Grills pellet cooker. Why am I smoking a spatchcock turkey on a pellet grill? Because I can pretty much set it and forget it on the pellet smoker. I always push a grilled turkey for Thanksgiving to free up the oven(s) for sides and pies. Also, despite the negative press, pellet grills make some mean BBQ and I’m proud to cook on one. 

And I can just check the temp and trajectory of the grill on the app on my phone while I watch the Thanksgiving Day parade and prepare for guests.

If you want the more traditional bird, here’s one for that look, but it’s much more complicated.

Spatchcock Turkey Ingredients:

• 1 turkey, approximately 12 pounds
• 1 quart apple cider
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 pound pork sausage (we prefer sage, but regular pork sausage will work)
• 4 teaspoons of your favorite poultry BBQ rub (first ingredient is salt)
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 8 whole carrots, skinned and chunked
• 3 limes, quartered
• 3 lemons quartered
• 2 oranges, cut in sixths
• 1 purple onion, cut in eighths
• 2 pounds of red potatoes
• 32 ounces of chicken or turkey broth
• 1 cup apple cider for spritz
• 2 sticks of butter, salted

What is the Purpose of Spatchcocking a Turkey?

Spatchcocking a turkey accomplishes three things:

1. By laying everything flat, it cooks more evenly than having the dark meat (thighs and legs) on the bottom where they get less heat but take longer to cook than the breasts that are on top where the heat collects (heat rises)
2. By butterflying the bird out, it spreads the mass out and thus allows the grilled turkey to cook more quickly
3. When cooking a traditional bird, a large portion of the skin is on the bottom where the fat collects and thus will never crisp up. By spatchcocking the turkey, all the skin is facing up and thus all of it can get crispy and delicious!

After all that, it begs the question

How long does it take to cook a butterflied turkey on the grill?

Never cook to time, cook to temp. Take the turkey to 165F-170F in the breast. I like to go higher in the thigh – 175F-ish, which is really hard to do since the dark meat takes longer to cook than the breasts. The lack of fat in the white meat means it cooks faster. By stuffing the sausage under the skin, we introduce fat to the breasts, insulate the meat and thus increase cooking time of the white meat which means the whole bird will cook evenly. That’s the long answer. TLDR; It will save you 1-2 hours off your cook of a traditional bird.

Let’s get after spatchcocking this bird. There is lots of talk of using a knife to spatchcock, which works on chickens, but only if the knife is surgically sharp. The rib bones are much thicker on a turkey than a chicken, so we highly recommend shears.

The Basic Steps to Spatchcock a Turkey

1. Remove the spine
2. Cut a notch in the top of the breast bone
3. Flatten the collar bones

Start by flipping the bird over so the breasts are down and the back is up and take those shears up one side of the spine:

Then go up the other side of the spine:

Remove the backbone:

While we are here, might as well take the tail off:

Now some folks remove this bone:

I find if I take that out it’s just two half turkeys held together by the skin.
What I do is turn it around and then cut a notch on the top of that, right between those two tasty nuggets of meat on the back:

This is usually a two hand process:

Just cut about an inch and then she lays flat, almost:

Flip the turkey over and lets break those color bones:

It might take two hands, sorta like doing CPR:

There will be a notable pop or crack when they break.

Spatchcocked

And when they do, the turkey is spatchcocked (or butterflied):

Now here’s your new best friend: the disposable aluminum pan (two of them to be exact):

We need the big pans for this cook. I go through these things like skittles on Halloween, so I buy in bulk.
For this recipe alone I used four.
Lay the turkey, breast side down, in the double layer of pans and add the salt and the cider:

For the cider, I got the good stuff from Eckert’s, which has been an institution in the St. Louis Area for more than a century, first selling fruit in 1910 just across the river in Belleville IL.

For me and my family,Eckert’s is a true treasure of the region and we try to make at least one trip there a year to enjoy the plethora of festivities.

As of the writing of this post, myself and the kids made a visit about 2 months ago.

Then stir the cider with a spoon to dissolve the salt:

Although, you could dissolve the salt in the cider in a pot or plastic bag if that works better for you.

Once the salt is dissolved, into the fridge we go:

How long do you brine a turkey?

For 2-12 hours. Go any longer and you risk curing the turkey and it will have the consistency of ham.

I brined this one for about 6 hours.

How to Sausage Stuff a Spatchcocked Turkey

After the bird was brined, I removed it from the salty cider, patted it dry and busted out the sausage:

You will see that the recipe calls for 1 lb of sausage, but there are two pounds shown. Go with the single pound. I’ll explain that later on. To get the sausage into the turkey, work your fingers between the skin and the breast meat. I will strongly recommend another product here. Nitrile Gloves. We’re working with raw turkey and sausage, turkey skin, etc.

Trust me, the gloves make this process soooo much easier.

Keep working your fingers down the breasts to create a big pocket over each one:

When each hand fits over each breast, we are good to go:

Now stuff a half pound over each breast:

Then rub it down with the poultry rub/mixed with the baking powder starting on the back side:

Then flip it over and hit the skin side:

When doing this recipe the second time, on Thanksgiving, I added some baking powder to the rub.

This rub has salt as the first ingredient.

Combine the salty rub with the baking powder and let that sit on the bird overnight and it will draw some moisture out of the skin and help to crisp up that skin.

How do you crisp up the skin on turkey?

Mix baking powder and a salty rub with a ratio of 4:1 rub to baking powder. Coat the bird overnight. Spatchcocking the bird is the key to making sure all the skin crisps up. A traditional bird will be setting on skin and thus moisture will collect there and not allow it to crisp up.

Butterflying out the turkey puts all the skin facing up and thus it will all crisp up.

Put the flattened gobbler in a couple aluminum pans and back in the fridge, ready for the grill the next day:

The following day, I removed the turkey from the aluminum pans and proceeded to chop the rest of the dry ingredients.

I quartered the lemons, limes and tiny oranges, cut the big oranges into sixths, my onions into eighths, chunked up the carrots and left the red potatoes whole (albeit they were fairly small):

How do you Cook a Spatchcocked Turkey on a Pellet Smoker?

I set the seasoned, spatchcocked and sausage stuffed turkey, skin side up over all of those glorious aromatics and put the whole pan in my pellet cooker which I preheated to 300F:

I wait till the bird is on the grill to add the broth just because that’s a lot of weight already in those aluminum pans and I don’t want to slosh any around on the way to the grill.

I’ll have to make that slow walk later when it’s all cooked, but here I can avoid it:

I totally forgot the butter here, but that’s OK. It worked out in the end.

But if you want to add a couple sticks of butter at this point, go for it.

Now we close the lid and let that smoke and heat transform this gobbler into something magical.

Every 30-45 minutes, pop the lid and give it a spritz of the apple cider:

It was on the second spritz that I realized I hadn’t added the butter.

Notice the steam coming off the bird as the cider vaporizes as it hits.

You will also see those two sticks of butter:

After the third spray of cider, I decided to amp up the basting game.

Why go with cider when we have all this gloriousness in the pan:

Don’t go straight to the basting after just 30 minutes on the grill. Otherwise all that rub will just wash right off.

The spray allows me to baste but not lose my seasoning.

Braise the Spatchcock Turkey

After 60-90 minutes or so, the rub is adhered better to the grilled turkey.

Still, go easy.

Don’t use the turkey baster as a jet spray:

See that spot in the very middle between the breasts above.

Yes, go look at the turkey cleavage! I hit that spot a little too hard and washed some rub off.

If that happens, you can sprinkle some more rub on or leave it. I just left it.

After three hours, our smoked turkey was looking great, but we were still only at 148F-150F and I needed to get this off the grill:

Do you flip Spatchcock Turkey?

While I flip my grilled turkey when I do a traditional bird, I do not flip when doing a spatchcocked turkey. With it butterflied out, it cooks evenly and quickly and does not need to be flipped. Also, flipping will probably tear the skin where the thighs connect to the abdomen and rip the skin wherever the tongs grip the smoked turkey.

Time to introduce you to your other best friend, it’s also disposable and made of aluminum:

Three sheets of foil overlapping on top and I cranked the temp up to 425F on my grill:

Then I took this one to 170F. See, it’s a little more difficult to get an accurate reading on the breast because the probe might be in the smoked sausage and not the breast meat. I took it an extra five degrees (170F) to make sure and with the sausage constantly basting the white meat, it didn’t dry out.

ATTENTION: We did this for a live cooking class and dad was supposed to get pics as this was done. But the sommelier we had to talk about Thanksgiving wine pairings was feeding dad drinks and he didn’t get any. I had to take these pics 45 minutes after we sliced. So they look dry. When we sliced it, the turkey was not dry. 45 minutes later it was.

Time to Rest the Turkey

At 170F I put the smoked turkey into my Cambro. If you don’t have a Cambro, simply drop the whole pan, foil and all into an empty cooler or into a microwave (obviously, don’t turn it on).

An unlit oven could work too, but, remember that on Thanksgiving, that oven is likely to be on and full of sides and pies.

If that pic looks like it’s only half the story, well it is:

See, we were cooking this turkey for a live cooking demo we did over Zoom. And with close to 300 people watching, we started cutting the turkey before we could get our final shots. Couple things to note here. See how on the right side of the pan there are no potatoes. Because we ate all of those.

It was amazing to take a potato out, tear it in half, dunk each side in that citrus butter and take a bite:

After we tore apart the left side of the turkey we exposed the rest of the red potatoes, but by that time we were moving on to our spiral ham that was also part of the presentation.

The second thing to note is that part where I mentioned to only use 1 pound of sausage (1/2 pound per breast).

Because when we sliced into it, we found the sausage to turkey ratio was a little skewed too far to the side of the smoked sausage:

This was toward the end of the skinny end of the breast about 40 minutes after we sliced it for the first time.

In the thickest parts, it was three inches of sausage.

Speaking of that smoked sausage, add some thin slices to a turkey sando on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Indeed, that’s a killer sammy right there!

Also, check out the smoke ring on the sausage:

How to Spatchcock Turkey Recap

Butterflying or spatchcocking a turkey results in a more evenly grilled turkey, shorter cooking times and crispier skin. Adding the sausage also slows down the cooking of the white meat so the dark and white meat finish about the same time. The aromatics and butter and broth are all optional but make for a wonderful side dish and/or butter dipping sauce. Also, that sausage goes really well on a post Thanksgiving turkey sandwich. Furthermore, the sausage and the potatoes makes for a wonderful big breakfast the next few days, as well.

If you have any questions or comments about how to spatchcock turkey, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

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How to Spatchcock Turkey Update

I served this exact spatchcock turkey recipe for Thanksgiving this year and was able to snap a few pics of the finished bird.

But the best part was that my little girl helped me baste the spatchcock turkey:

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How to Spatchcock Turkey: with Pictures

Butterflied, brined and sausage stuffed turkey, smoked to perfection for Thanksgiving dinner to make How to Spatchcock Turkey: with Pictures

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Active Time4 hours hrs

Course: Entree, Grilled Thanksgiving Turkey, Thanksgiving Turkey, Whole Turkey

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Thanksgiving Dinner, Traditional American

Keyword: Butterflied, Butterflied Turkey, Grilled Turkey, Pellet Cooker, Pellet Grill, Pellet Smoker, Spatchcock, Spatchcock Turkey, Spatchcocked, Spatchcocking, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Turkey, Turkey

Equipment

• kitchen shears
• 2 disposable aluminum pans The large ones
• aluminum foil
• 1 turkey baster

Materials

• 12 pound Turkey Giblets and neck removed
• 1 quart Apple cider
• ¼ cup Salt
• 1 pound Pork sausage We prefer sage sausage
• 4 teaspoon Your favorite poultry BBQ seasoning
• 1 teaspoon Baking powder
• 8-10 Carrots, skinned
• 3 Limes, quartered
• 3 Lemons, quartered
• 2 Oranges, cut in sixths
• 1 Purple onion, cut in eighths
• 2 pounds Red potatoes
• 32 ounces Chicken or turkey broth
• 1 cup Apple cider for spritz
• 2 sticks Salted butter

Instructions

• Turn the bird over to breast side down and take shears up one side of the spine
• Cut up the other side of the spine with the shears
• Cut a one inch notch in the breast bone near where the neck would be
• Cut the tail off
• Lay the bird flat, skin side up and place the palm of your hand at the top near the breasts and push down hard until you hear a crack on each side
• Place the turkey into a double layer of the large disposable aluminum pans, skin side down
• Add salt and cider and stir until the salt is dissolved
• After 2-12 hours remove the turkey from the liquid and pat it dry
• Form a pouch under the skin over each breast
• Stuff a half pound into each pouch, flattening the sausage so it covers the breasts evenly
• Season the underside of the bird with the poultry seasoning
• Flip over and season the skin side with the same seasoning
• Place the sausage stuffed spatchcock turkey in the aluminum pans and refrigerate over night
• The next day, preheat the pellet grill to 300F and remove the turkey from the aluminum pans (I placed mine on a sheet of foil)
• While the grill is warming up, chop the citrus, carrots, and onions and place them with the whole red potatoes in the disposable pans
• Place the butterflied turkey on top of the aromatics skin side up
• Set the pan of aromatics and spatchcock turkey in the smoker
• Pour in 32 ounces of chicken or turkey broth and 2 sticks of butter
• Fill a squirt bottle with a cup of apple cider and set to spray (not stream)
• Every 30-40 minutes give the turkey a spritz with the cider, making sure not to wash the seasoning off
• After 90 minutes or so, take a turkey baster and baste the gobbler with the butter/broth/citrus mixture, making sure to not spray the fluid too strongly as to not wash the seasoning off
• Baste every 30-40 minutes with the turkey baster
• Once the turkey hits a beautiful mahogany brown color, top the pan with three overlapping sheets of foil and form a fairly tight seal around the pan
• Crank the heat of the grill up to 425F
• When the turkey hits 165F-170F remove the pan from the grill, foil and all and place in an empty cooler, or turned off microwave or a Cambro
• The turkey will still be hot and delicious even up to 4 hours later
• Slice the turkey and serve

Video

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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This article was initially published on: November 19, 2022