How to Cook Turkey in a Paper Bag

Tired of dry turkey? Want this year’s Thanksgiving turkey to be moist and delicious without having to baste it? Then you need to learn how to cook turkey in a paper bag. It may sound strange but it’s so easy and delicious you’ll never want to cook turkey any other way again.

Ingredients for the Turkey:

1 Turkey (the rule of thumb is a turkey that allows for 1 lb. of raw turkey per person)
1 large paper bag (such as the one you get at the grocery or liquor store. Note: you want a paper bag without any ink on it—just a plain paper bag.)
1 brick of Crisco shortening
Wax paper
1 roaster pan big enough to fit your turkey into  
Butcher’s twine to secure turkey legs

Ingredients for the Stuffing

2 sausage meat chubs (found in frozen meat section)
1 Large onion, diced small
1 Large celery stalk, diced small
2 table spoons poultry season.
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 cups bread crumbs
2 eggs

First prepare your sausage meat stuffing. Combine all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands until all the ingredients are well combined. To flavor your stuffing to your liking make one very small patty (about the size of a quarter) and fry it up to taste test the mixture (don’t try it raw as it could make you very sick). Adjust the salt or poultry seasoning to your own preferences.

Now begin prepping your turkey. Remove the turkey from its wrapper, clean out the insides of any “giblets” and rinse the turkey well. Pat the turkey dry and set aside.

Using a square piece of wax paper collect a large dollop of the Crisco shortening and begin to coat the inside of your paper bag. Repeat this process until every side and bottom of the bag is thoroughly coated with the Crisco shortening (the bag should turn a darker shade where you’ve coated it enough—add more to lighter spots). With the bag well coated you won’t have to worry about it burning and the bag acts as a large wick which will suck up the turkey’s juices and drip it onto the top of the bird constantly basting it.

Repeat the shortening process with your turkey, coating all the outer skin of the turkey with a thin layer of Crisco. Make sure to get it in all those nooks and crannies like around the drumsticks/thighs areas. Now stuff your turkey with the sausage meat stuffing until the cavity is filled but not overflowing.

Truss your turkey (tie the legs together in front of the stuffed cavity) and gently place it into the paper bag. Fold the opening of the bag several times and staple closed. Place the bagged turkey into the bottom of a roasting pan (no lid required) and cook at 325 degrees Fahrenheit using the weight/cooking chart below as your cooking time for your turkey.

For turkeys weighing 12 lbs and under cook for 15 minutes per pound (total weight as marked on label) per pound. So if your turkey weighs 10 pounds the cooking time is 10x15= 150 (minutes) divided by 60 (minutes in an hour) for a total of 2.5 hours of total cooking time.

Turkey’s weighing over 12 lbs. should be cooked at 12 minutes per pound.

When there is about 15 minutes left in cooking time pull out the bird and slit open the top of your paper bag. Place the turkey back into the oven to brown the skin for the remainder of the cooking time.

When your cooking time is done remove the bird from the oven, roaster and all, and allow the turkey to sit and rest for 20 minutes before carving. This lets the turkey pull its juices back in and makes for a moister bird. When the resting period is over remove your stuffing, carve your turkey and serve with your other tasty Thanksgiving recipes .