Epic Sous Vide Whole Turkey in a Tiny Kitchen

Got limited space? You can still make stunning sous vide whole turkey with crispy skin and ultra-tender meat without any fuss! Here is how.

Holiday meals and gatherings are wonderful but often one big heap of stress for the cook, especially if you have a small kitchen. 

What? A whole turkey for Thanksgiving? There’s NO WAY, you say.

Actually, there is a practical way of cooking a Thanksgiving turkey to moist and juicy perfection without any stress, despite your kitchen size.

I’ve done it and let me show you how. 

Why Sous Vide a Whole Turkey?

Even if you have a big and fully equipped kitchen, there are a number of reasons to consider the sous vide method to cook your turkey on the big day. 

The #1 reason, in my opinion, is for guaranteed results, because you don’t want anything to go wrong with that big bird when you have ten people coming for dinner.

You can leave your turkey quietly cooking to perfection in a sous vide bath and completely free up your mental space AND oven space for other things. 

It does take longer when you sous vide a whole turkey compared to making a roasted turkey in the oven. However, there’s no babysitting, no stress involved, and the best outcome is guaranteed. 

For me, I have no choice because there is no proper oven in my small kitchen in Hong Kong. (Spoiler alert: I finished my turkey in a 19L toaster oven, as you can see in the recipe video.) 

The Most Practical Way to Sous Vide Whole Turkey in a Tiny Kitchen

There are a few ways to cook a whole bird sous vide. If your sous vide cooking vessel is big enough to hold your turkey, you can: 

• Stuff the cavity with onions, lemons, and fresh herbs (like I did with the sous vide whole chicken), vacuum-seal it, then put it in a sous vide bath to cook.
• Put a huge amount of turkey or chicken stock into the same bag with the turkey, so the cavity is filled with liquid to sous vide.
• If you don’t want to stuff the cavity or poach your turkey, you can put it in a large, expandable vacuum-seal bag and use your fist to punch the sealed end of the bag into the cavity. Keep your hand in there till it seals, so the water in the bath can circulate around inside it. Personally, I haven’t tried this method yet because it’s not feasible for me. 

A word of caution: To sous vide a whole turkey without spatchcocking or breaking it down, you want to make sure that the cavity is filled up during the entire cooking process. Air does not conduct heat well, so if the air is not completely removed from the cavity, it will prevent the inner part of the turkey from reaching the desired temperature, which can cause serious safety concerns. 

The most practical way, AKA my tiny kitchen way, is to break the turkey into four parts and sous vide cook the white meat and dark meat at different temperatures. 

This way not only takes the food safety concerns out of the equation but also allows you to cook the white meat and the dark meat separately for prime results. 

Bonus points: You free up a lot of fridge space when you separate the turkey into four sections. Your normal sous vide vessel will likely hold all the parts (but possibly not the intact bird), and there is no need to go for a custom bag—even zip-top bags can do the job just fine! The bottom line: Your normal sous vide set-up is absolutely sufficient to sous vide cook a turkey. 

And that’s how I cooked a 16-pound turkey in my small kitchen. Sound good? Let’s look at the sous vide cooking time and temperature for turkey.

Sous Vide Whole Turkey Time and Temperature

For the sake of comprehensiveness (I can’t help it!), I am going to include the cooking time and temperature for an intact bird as well. 

Sous Vide Whole Turkey Time and Temperature Chart

Turkey Parts	Cook Temperature	Cook Time
White Meat(Breasts with Drumettes and Wingettes)	131°F (55°C)	8 to 14 hours
	140°F (60°C)	3 to 8 hours
Dark Meat (Thighs and Drumsticks)	148°F (64°C) to 150°F ( 66°C)	6 to 12 hours
Spatchcocked Turkey	150°F ( 66°C)	6 to 7 hours
Whole Turkey	150°F ( 66°C)	18 to 24 hours

What You Need

Alrighty, now it’s time to gear up and gather ingredients for the epic turkey.

Essential Ingredients

• A whole turkey: 14-16 pounds.
• Kosher salt for the dry brine: 1 tablespoon of salt per 4 pounds of turkey is a good ratio.
• Butter or olive oil: To get that golden and crisp skin, you don’t want to skip brushing melted butter or olive oil on the turkey skin before putting it into the oven to finish. 
• Optional seasonings and herbs: My favorite seasoning combination for poultry involves brown sugar, smoked paprika, ground cumin, dried oregano, dried sage, dried thyme, ground mustard, and ground coriander. For more flavor, you can add those to the salt when dry brining the turkey.

Essential Equipment 

• A pair of good kitchen scissors. I used 8” Wüsthof kitchen shears and a Wüsthof Classic 8″ Chef’s Knife to break down my turkey. 
• A sous vide immersion circulator. Anova Precision Cooker is my go-to sous vide machine.
• A  sous vide container. I love my Anova sous vide cooking container, which holds up to 16L of water with a removable lid and a rack. It’s big enough to hold my turkey parts with plenty of space for the water to circulate. 
• A vacuum sealer. To sous vide an intact bird, a vacuum sealer is essential for safety reasons. To sous vide turkey parts, it’s still ideal to vacuum seal the parts for sous vide, but using the water displacement method can work too.
• Vacuum-sealer rolls. For this recipe, I used vacuum-sealer rolls to custom-cut four vacuum-sealer bags to hold the four parts of my turkey. Want to know how to choose the right bags for sous vide every time? Read my deep-dive guide: Sous Vide Bags 101.
• A good knife. I usually use my Global knife for everyday cutting and chopping. For carving a turkey, I opted for my beloved Wüsthof Classic 8″ Chef’s Knife. 

How to Cook an Epic Sous Vide Whole Turkey in a Tiny Kitchen (Step by Step)

Step #1: Break down the turkey 

Use a good pair of kitchen scissors and/or a knife to cut and remove the backbone of the turkey including the neck. Save the bones for turkey stock or gravy. Cut the turkey into four parts: two breasts with drumettes and wingettes plus two legs including thighs and drumsticks. Rinse the parts clean. 

Step #2: Dry brine the turkey

Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Gently separate the skin from the breast and drumsticks by inserting your fingers and slowly pushing between the skin and the meat. Be careful not to break the skin. Rub kosher salt all over the turkey parts as well as under the skin. Refrigerate it overnight. If you can, arrange the turkey parts in a single layer, skin side up, and don’t cover them. The fridge will help dry out the skin, which crisps it up even more after finishing in the oven.

Step #3: Bag the turkey

Cut four cut-to-size vacuum-sealer bags from a vacuum-sealer roll. Put each part of the turkey into a separate bag, and add fresh herbs if you like. Make sure that the skin side of your turkey goes against the smooth side of your vacuum bag. The other side of the bag is embossed, which will leave marks on the turkey skin. Vacuum-seal the bags. Keep them in the fridge until ready to cook. 

Step #4: Sous vide white meat 

Preheat water to 140°F (60°C). Once the water is ready, place turkey breast parts under the water and set the timer for 3-8 hours according to what works for you. Once the timer goes off, drop the white meat directly into an ice bath to chill for at least 30 minutes.

Step #5: Sous vide dark meat

Increase the water temperature to 150°F (66°C). Once the water is ready. Submerge the leg parts under the water and set the timer for 6-12 hours. Once the timer goes off, immediately drop them into an ice-water bath to chill for at least 30 minutes. 

Step #6: Finish the turkey in one of two ways

Heat oven to 500°F (260°C). Open the bags, remove the herbs, and pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Brush melted butter or olive oil on the turkey skin. Place the turkey parts on a rack in a roasting pan. Roast for 30 minutes until the skin is golden brown and crispy. Do it in batches if you have a small toaster oven like mine. It doesn’t go up to 500°F (260°C), so I finished my turkey at 460°F (240°C), one piece at a time. 

There’s also a quicker way to finish your turkey. Here’s what to do. 

Preheat your broiler. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Place the turkey legs on a baking sheet; place them on the oven’s top rack and allow them to broil for 5-15 minutes or until the skin is golden brown. Then sear the turkey breasts skin-side down in a hot skillet on the stove with butter or oil. Scoop up some butter with a spoon to baste the exposed side. Sear until the skin is golden brown, about 1-2 minutes. Flip and repeat the other side. 

Step #7: Serve

Let the turkey rest for 30 minutes, carve, garnish with fresh herbs, and serve with gravy or without—it’s plenty juicy and moist already.  

If you have a small group of 4-6 people to serve, consider making sous vide turkey breast. It takes much less time. 

Look, holiday gatherings should be fun and enjoyable for everyone. As a home chef, you don’t want to finally sit down at the Thanksgiving dinner table being mentally and physically exhausted. This practical way of cooking a whole turkey helps free up more of your time and energy to enjoy memorable moments with your loved ones. 

It’s delicious and it’s epic!

So give this sous vide recipe a try, and leave a comment below to let other StreetSmart home chefs know how it goes. I look forward to reading it. Cheers!

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