How can you cook the perfect TURKEY in an Air Fryer?
I share how easy and quick it is to make this delicious 4lbs/2kg Turkey Crown: with the correct cooking time and temperature using a Ninja Foodi Max DualZone Air Fryer - 10 quarts/9.75L for 4.4lbs/1.8kg Turkey!
PLUS how I also prepare a herb butter for the crispy skin.
BUY a NINJA FOODI MAX DUAL ZONE 9.5L 10 quart Air Fryer HERE! (Commissions Earned)
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🔪 CHOPPING BOARD: JOSEPH JOSEPH CUT&CARVE
Perfect Air Fryer TURKEY? How Ninja Foodi Max airfryer copes...
TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Can you cook a turkey like one of these in an air fryer, like one of these? I know, I know what you're saying, that “Why? Why don't you just do it in an oven?” I keep getting comments like that every time I make an air fryer video. But maybe you are on vacation, or on holiday, and staying somewhere... somewhere new that doesn't have an oven. Or maybe your oven's broken, and this... you're actually watching this video right now because it's an emergency. Or maybe you know that you can save energy and money by cooking in an air fryer. Or maybe you're just using the air fryer as an overflow to cook some extra turkey. Or maybe your oven's full with other delicious food. So that's why I'm trying this in an air fryer. This is an air fryer safe space, uh, this is air fryer friendly. This is the very first time I'm doing this. Here's some footage from the future. Obviously, this is hopefully just over an hour from now, where I'm hoping that this turkey looks delicious and succulent and easy to cook in my air fryer. You've got a spoiler for me there, because I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I'm using our air fryer, which is a Ninja Foodi Max, and it's 10 quarts, or 9.5L, which means each basket is 5 quarts, or 4.75L. But what about the turkey? Will it fit? This... the biggest worry, isn't it, “Will it fit into a 5 quart, or 4.75L basket?” I know you probably want to cook a whole big turkey. I don't think you can get a whole big turkey in, but, just for size, if you want to size it up, this is a small turkey crown, and this is 1.8kg, and it fits really easily into the basket. We'll do this properly in a minute. What you can do is, obviously, cut off the legs, and, if possible, remove the rib cage. We're doing this for a turkey that is... is up to 2kg, or 4.4lb, and it was a frozen turkey from the supermarket. I defrosted it, but I've also given it 30 minutes to bring the turkey to room temperature. We can just open up the bag, and I'm splashing this everywhere! I keep getting comments for my chicken videos where people say, “Wash the chicken! Wash it! Wash the bird!” I can understand why you do that, but equally, I'm going to put this into an oven at 400°F for well over an hour. I'm not quite sure how effective washing is going to be. But I'm just patting the bird down so that, uh, we're drying the skin a little. And don't forget to remove the giblets if they're still in your turkey crown. We just have this kind of pad that... that soaks up all of the liquid. And I'm also going to trim the neck. I'm trimming the excess skin from around the, uh, the neck area... area, uh, just with some scissors. Now, my amazing wife watches these videos in horror, because I don't literally show myself literally washing my hands literally after every step. But I think you... I think you're intelligent enough to know that, as soon as I've touched the bird, I... I'm going to wash my hands with soap and water. So I've got this very literal “washing my hands” sequence. This is just for my wife, just to show her that I did wash my hands at some stage. But actually, I wash my hands at every stage of this, because you do not want poultry juice going everywhere and being touched on other things. Let's grab some rosemary, and I'm going to chop up one tablespoon of rosemary. You don't need to do this, obviously, to cook your turkey, I'm just doing this to look good on camera. I'm going to make a herb butter to smear on... on the turkey. I'm not a cook, or a chef, but I just wanted to jazz this up, and make it look a bit less, uh, pale, and honestly, I think I could probably use jars of herbs, uh, from the cupboard, uh, this is all just for show for the video. And I'm making a right mess trying to strip the rosemary, but anyway, we want enough for one tablespoon, and, uh, chop it up. That goes into the bowl. The next herb is thyme, and we're going to do exactly the same with this. This one's even messier! I don't think I've even got the stalks out of this one! I should definitely have used just the jar from the... from the spice rack, but anyway, in goes the thyme. We need 3/4 of a cup of softened butter, that's 100g, and I don't have any butter, so I've got this spreadable butter from the fridge, and I think this is about 100g, so in they go. And for the turkey, I'm going to use about six or seven cloves of garlic. So I'm going to, uh, cut and peel these cloves, but I'm going to put two or three small ones into... to the herb butter. And for this I've got this tool, which is probably our favourite, and most used thing, in the kitchen. It's so underrated! It's a microplane, so it's a very fine grater, and I'll put a link to our microplane down in the description if you wanted to buy one on Amazon. I find it much easier to mash the garlic with the microplane rather than using a... a garlic crusher. It's also less messy, because it just goes through to the other side. Then you can scrape it off with a spoon straight into the bowl. I'm mashing up the herb butter with a fork. Herb is a lot easier to say than herb, isn't it? I'll do it the British way. So this is our herb butter, I'm mashing it up with a fork. I forgot to say I put in some salt and pepper. So here's some literal shots of me putting in salt and pepper. But back to the mashing of the herb butter. That's looking really good, isn't it? All you need is a fork for this one. And now it's time to dress the turkey! So I'm cutting this onion into wedges, and also a lemon. And I'm going to put these wedges actually into the bird. So I'm finding space in the cavity to just cram in the onion and lemon. And, because it's a crown, obviously it's having none of it, and they keep popping out. So just try and put in as much as possible underneath the bird. Now we can dress the outside of the turkey! I'm making these cuts with my Global knife, by the way. This Global knife, I have a link down in the description if you wanted to get one on Amazon, it's been with us for over 20 years. Love this knife! But I'm just making some cuts so that we can put some garlic actually into the turkey to flavour it. And now it's time for the herb butter. Oh my goodness! Well, you need to go your own way on this. I need to pat the turkey dry just to make sure the skin is dry to get the... the butter on. Again, I'm just using my hands to smear this all over the skin, and it's... it's quite tricky to get it on. I'm also a bit worried that the air fryer is going to really make this butter spit, so I'm going to put the bulk of it actually underneath the skin, and that hopefully will cook the... the skin, and make it all really lovely flavoured. Obviously, again, you don't need to do this, uh, just to cook your turkey in the air fryer. I'm just doing this just so it looks good and tasty. Should we have another literal shot of me washing my hands? I think I need to just, uh, for my wife's blood pressure... This is a very exciting moment! Just get the camera over here, because, uh, Ninja say that you don't need to preheat the air fryer to cook anything, but I am going to preheat this because we want to roast this bird, so I... I've got a random temperature, I'm just going to put it on for about 400° Fahrenheit, or 200° Centigrade, just to warm up that basket. So, when the bird goes in, it's just all heat, all the way, all roast! Now, this is the moment of truth! We are going to put this turkey into this basket. Again, this is 5 quart, or 4.75L. I'm leaving the tray in to help with the air circulation. What you can do, I... it's a really good tip, you can use vegetables... pretend this is a carrot. You can use chopped carrots on the bottom, or other vegetables, like the lemons, to use that to raise the bird slightly, and just to keep it from sticking on the bottom. But I'm going to keep the air circulation tray in, and I'm just going to go for it, I guess. Hope that all the lemons and onions don't fall out. It smells gorgeous already! I don't... going to touch the basket because it's really hot from where I've preheated it. And also, I'm just going to make sure that nothing is too high. You can't really see this, but this is actually protruding on the top, and I really do not want that, because... ow, ow, ow! Because it will touch the heating element, and that will burn, and give you some not good results. Oh! Before we do another literal shot of me washing my hands again... This is my favourite part of every video, because it's time to bung it in the air fryer! And, ah, I have to use both hands, 'cause it is so heavy. What I'm going to do, I'm going to put on screen the actual time that I'm going to cook the whole thing for. But just to get us started, I'm going to switch this dial to “roast”, and I'm going to dial up 350°F, that's 170°C, I'm going to set it to 1 hour 10 minutes. And if you hold down the time button, you can actually go up in quite big increments there. So I'm just going to go for “110”, and then we just hit “start”!
I'm not a food expert, or a chef, or a home economist, I'm just a dad doing this for the very first time. But what I've been told is, if you're trying to allow enough meat per person, that it should be one pound of turkey per person, which is 500g. So this bird here should feed four people, uh, I had difficulty calling my kids “people” there for a moment. Or, uh, a pound and a half if you want leftovers.
3, 2, 1, here's the big moment of reveal! How do it come out? Oh my goodness! A... I cannot believe it looks like this in just over an hour! That is absolutely incredible! Look at that!
Woah! Still... it's still a struggle to hold with one hand! I... I didn't think an hour and 10 would be enough! All the proper chefs and home economists would say, “Use a meat thermometer”, and I would say, “Use a meat thermometer”, but maybe you're somewhere where you don't have a meat thermometer, and I... I... I don't have one to... And so, what we're going to do, we're going to check that the juices run clear. So I'm going to do this with a small skewer. I'm going to go into the deepest part of the meat, I'm just going to push that all the way in. Yeah, this is too small, and actually, there's no... there's no juice running out. So I've got a feeling this is cooked in, so I'm going to use a chopstick... Yeah, and I mean this is really... that is... I think that's really cooked, so there are no juices running clear. But if you have juices, obviously, you don't want them to be pink. I'm going to use two forks to lift it out onto a chopping board. Oh look, even the... the garlic is roasted! Oh, the tray's come with it! Ah, these juices in the bottom might help with the gravy. The tray has stuck to the... to the turkey. Let's remove the tray. Oh my goodness, I am so pleased with how this has come out! But the proof is in the cutting, isn't it? Let me take the Global knife, and I'm just going to cut into the crown so that you can see how this looks. Wow! The skin is so crispy! Let's cut into this bird, and... oh my goodness! I cannot believe that this turkey has come out of the air fryer in just a little more than an hour! It's come out absolutely perfectly cooked through, there are no pink sections, and if anything, I think it might even be slightly, ever so slightly, overcooked. I think you could probably do this in an hour for a turkey crown this size. It slices so easily. The smell is indescribable! It is... smells so gorgeous. I think, because of the herbs that we added, the butter I think has also helped to seep through and make, uh, the meat more succulent. Now, the usual advice for turkey is that, once it's come out of the oven, to let it rest for half an hour to make sure that the meat is succulent and tender. It's time for the moment of truth! Time to dive in! Uh, I hate making these shots, but I've got to show you that it does actually taste as good as it looks. There's the turkey meat.
Let's give it a try. Oh! It is gorgeous! I'm not actually a big fan of turkey... turkey, but this has come out absolutely 10 times better than I thought it would! I'm calling this a “dad delivers” success! Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button, it really helps me to keep these videos coming. And right here are some more air fryer recipes that YouTube knows that you're going to love watching next.
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