Easy Garlic Butter Herb Roasted Turkey Recipe

The best garlic butter herb roasted turkey recipe ever - with tips on how to brine turkey, a chart for how long to roast turkey, how much turkey per person, and more.

By Maya on November 2, 2018

38 Comments

Before jumping to the recipe card, don't miss the HELPFUL RECIPE TIPS in the post! I hope you'll find them useful and will love this low carb recipe!

Easy Garlic Butter Herb Roasted Turkey Recipe - The best garlic butter herb roasted turkey recipe ever - with tips on how to brine turkey, a chart for how long to roast turkey, how much turkey per person, and more.

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This is the only guide you’ll ever need to making the perfect, juicy, naturally low carb turkey for Thanksgiving. From choosing your turkey to thawing to brining to the rub and roasting time, we’ll cover everything for the best garlic butter herb roasted turkey ever.

How Much Turkey Per Person?

I developed this garlic butter herb roasted turkey recipe using my favorite All-Natural Turkey from Jennie-O. I can always count on it for quality without any weird added ingredients or sugar-y pre-made brine.

And since I’ve been testing this recipe since August (seriously!), I opted to test with smaller 12-pound turkeys. It was just my little family of four eating them. Okay, and some helpful friends, but most people prefer to wait for Thanksgiving to enjoy their garlic butter herb roasted turkey. 😉

Needless to say, we had a lot of leftovers. There aren’t really any turkeys small enough to feed 4 people without having extras.

Still, if you’re reading this, chances are that you’re probably making your garlic butter herb roasted turkey for an actual Thanksgiving meal.

So, you need to know how big a turkey to get, right? To figure out how much turkey per person, a general guide is 1 pound per person, or 1.5 pounds per person if you want leftovers. Of course, this accounts for bone weight too, so each person wouldn’t actually be eating an entire pound of meat.

Chart for how much turkey per person:

Number of People	Whole Turkey Weight	Whole Turkey Weight To Have Leftovers
8 people	8 lb	12 lb
10 people	10 lb	15 lb
12 people	12 lb	18 lb
14 people	14 lb	21 lb
16 people	16 lb	24 lb
18 people	18 lb	27 lb
20 people	20 lb	30 lb

How Long To Thaw a Turkey

Although some people buy fresh turkeys, the majority are frozen. So before you make your garlic butter herb roasted turkey, you need to thaw it first.

Not surprisingly, how long to thaw a turkey will depend on its size. Either way, you want to plan a few days ahead because it might take a long time!

Turkey Thawing Times By Weight

Here is a general guideline for how long to thaw a turkey based on weight:

4 to 8 pound turkey: 1 to 2 days
8 to 12 pound turkey: 2 to 3 days
12 to 16 pound turkey: 3 to 4 days
16 to 20 pound turkey: 4 to 5 days
20 to 24 pound turkey: 5 to 6 days
24 to 28 pound turkey: 7 to 8 days
28 to 32 pound turkey: 9 to 10 days

After your turkey has thawed completely, you can brine it.

Can you brine frozen turkey?

You probably can, but more than about a day is too long to brine it, whereas it would take longer to thaw unless you have a really tiny turkey.

So, it’s best to just thaw your turkey and then brine it after. If you must combine them, then only place your thawing turkey into the brine for the last 10 to 12 hours, when it’s almost fully thawed.

How To Brine a Turkey

Before we get to the garlic butter turkey rub, you need to brine your turkey. There are a million and one recipes for turkey brine, as well as trendy methods like dry brining.

But if you learn about how turkey brine works, you’ll know that the only absolutely critical aspect of a turkey brine is the SALT!

Salt particles are much smaller than anything else you can put into a brine, so they will more readily pass into the meat than any herbs, spices, or broth that you put into your brine.

(However, you can try brined turkey or easy no fail brined turkey if you still want other add-ins.)

Why do you need salt in turkey brine?

The reason a brine works – and the reason it’s not the same thing as just soaking in water – is the salt.

Salt performs three important functions in the brining process, all of which play a role in making your garlic herb roasted turkey more juicy:

Salt dissolves the muscle proteins, so they don’t contract as much during cooking (which would squeeze out moisture).
Salt water creates an imbalance between the moisture in the turkey and outside of it, causing the turkey to draw in more water through osmosis.
Salt water seasons the turkey all the way through the inside, instead of just a superficial salt on the outside.

How much salt in turkey brine?

To calculate the amount of salt for a turkey brine, we need to consider the amount of water rather than the size of the turkey itself. This is because all we really care about is the concentration of salt, so that osmosis can take effect.

The right concentration of salt is about 6 percent of the water weight. For each gallon of water, that would be 1.25 cups Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt or 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp of Morton Kosher Salt, Real Salt Kosher Salt, or most brands of sea salt. But, who wants to calculate that, right?

Here is a chart showing how much salt to use:

Turkey Weight	Water Volume	Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt	Morton's Kosher Salt, Real Salt Kosher Salt, or Sea Salt
8 to 12 lb	2 gallons (7.6 liters)	2 1/2 cups (450 grams)	1 3/4 cups (~438 grams)
13 to 17 lb	2 1/2 gallons (9.5 liters)	3 1/4 cups (570 grams)	2 1/4 cups (~563 grams)
18 to 22 lb	3 gallons (11.4 liters)	3 3/4 cups (675 grams)	2 3/4 cups (~688 grams)
23 to 27 lb	3 1/2 gallons (13.2 liters)	4 1/3 cups (780 grams)	3 cups + 2 tbsp (~781 grams)
28 to 32 lb	4 gallons (15.1 liters)	5 cups (900 grams)	3 1/2 cups (~875 grams)

Typically, kosher salt is recommended, but since I use sea salt so much in my recipes, I also included the equivalent amount of sea salt. It’s actually the same amount needed as some brands of kosher salt.

How long to brine turkey?

There is a sweet spot for how long to brine a turkey, which is generally 8 to 12 hours. If you do less time, the brine won’t have enough time to fully do its thing.

If you keep the turkey in brine for much longer than 12 hours, it will absorb too much salt and you risk it getting too salty.

Garlic Butter Turkey Rub

Garlic butter turkey rub is actually really easy and basic! But, it does an amazing job at locking in moisture in addition to the brine. Not to mention adding So. Much. Flavor.

To make the garlic butter turkey rub, simply mash the butter with the garlic, sea salt, black pepper, and fresh herbs.

Place your turkey onto the roasting rack and slide your hand underneath the turkey skin near the cavity. Continue to slide your hand between the skin and the turkey itself, everywhere you can, to separate the skin from the meat. Go over to the sides where the legs are, too. Be careful not to tear the skin.

Once that’s done, rub half of the garlic butter turkey rub underneath the skin and the other half over the skin. Don’t forget the sides!

The butter has a tendency to stick to your hands, but just spread it as best you can. It’s a little effort to do, but so worth it.

How Long To Roast Turkey

How long to roast turkey depends on its size and the oven temperature. Some people prefer low and slow at 325 degrees, others blast the turkey at 425 or 450 degrees and then reduce the temperature afterward.

My method for garlic herb roasted turkey works best at 350 degrees, as higher temperatures will burn the butter and herbs. You’ll need to start with the turkey covered to prevent burning anyway, and then uncover toward the end.

Turkey Roasting Time Chart

Here is a chart for how long to roast turkey covered at 350 degrees F. Start by roasting the turkey to brown the skin, then cover it and continue roasting for the remaining time.

Turkey Weight	Roast Uncovered First For This Long	Then Cover and Roast For	Total Time
8 to 11 lb	45 minutes	1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours	2 1/4 to 2 3/4 hours
12 to 14 lb	45 minutes	1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours 15 minutes	2 1/2 to 3 hours
15 to 17 lb	45 minutes	2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours	3 1/4 to 3 3/4 hours
18 to 21 lb	45 minutes	3 hours to 3 hours 30 minutes	3 3/4 to 4 1/4 hours
22 to 25 lb	45 minutes	3 hours 30 minutes to 4 hours	4 1/4 to 4 3/4 hours
26 to 30 lb	45 minutes	4 hours to 4 hours 45 minutes	4 3/4 to 5 1/2 hours

These times are for an unstuffed turkey. If your turkey is stuffed, add about 45 to 75 minutes to the covered roasting time (1 hour on average).

Some methods for roasted turkey say to roast it covered first and then uncover at the end, but I recommend the other way around. Then you can ensure that the skin is browned and then cook for the right amount of time after to cook the meat all the way through without risking too much browning.

This works best if the foil is tented when covering but not tightly against the turkey. If yours ends up touching it and the skin isn’t as crisp as you like at the end, you can always broil it for a couple of minutes to crisp it up, but I’ve never needed to do so.

This chart is a good starting point, but please use a meat thermometer to know for sure when your oven roasted turkey is done.

How To Know Roasted Turkey Is Done

The best way to know that a roasted turkey is done is to use a meat thermometer. I prefer a meat temperature probe so that I don’t have to keep checking on it.

The USDA recommends cooking the turkey until it’s 165 to 170 degrees F in the coolest part of the bird, which is usually the thickest part of the thigh. Be careful not to touch the bone when measuring the temperature, because this can skew the reading.

However, you will need to rest your garlic butter roasted turkey after you take it out of the oven for about 20 minutes, to ensure that the juices stay in when you cut into it.

And, the temperature actually continues to rise about 15 degrees while the turkey rests!

Therefore, some people (me included!) prefer to remove the turkey from the oven when it’s at 150 to 155 degrees F, cover it with foil, and let it rest for 20 minutes to reach the safe 165 to 170 degrees F mark. Just make sure it does reach safe temperature before eating.

What To Serve With Butter Herb Roasted Turkey

What to serve with roasted turkey if you’re having a low carb keto Thanksgiving dinner? There are plenty of options!

Here are a few classic favorite keto low carb Thanksgiving recipes:

Sugar-free cranberry sauce – a must with your garlic butter herb roasted turkey!
Keto cauliflower stuffing
Gluten-free green bean casserole
Low carb sweet potato casserole
Garlic parmesan keto biscuits
Keto pumpkin cheesecake – the most delicious way to finish your Thanksgiving!

And, I’ve served these to my larger non-low-carb families with great feedback. Hope your family will enjoy them as much as mine!