Ted Allen Shared His Timely Solution To An Unthawed Turkey

Nightmares come in many forms, and one of the most terrifying looks like an unthawed turkey on Thanksgiving morning. You might have heard the horror stories of waking up to a cold, solid bird on a fateful holiday morn or lived it yourself. Turkey is considered the main event of a Thanksgiving spread and it has the longest prep time, so an unthawed turkey is the last thing you need when you're already dealing with the stress of hosting Thanksgiving.

Now, you could go ahead and cook your frozen turkey anyway, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture says it might take 50% more time for it to be fully cooked. If time is not an issue for you, you might still want to be careful – especially if you intended to bake your icy bird on low heat over a long period. Ben Chapman, food safety specialist and assistant professor of food science at North Carolina State University, told Live Science that cooking a frozen turkey at a low temperature can be dangerous because bacteria thrive in such an environment. "We call that temperature between 41 and 135 degrees the danger zone. That's the temperature the pathogens can grow at," he said.

So does that mean unthawed turkey spells doom and Thanksgiving cannot be saved? Before you head out to your nearest restaurant chain serving Thanksgiving dinner, hear Tedd Allen out.

Ted Allen had some sage advice to impart on the subject of having a turkey that's still frozen on the day before Turkey Day. The "Chopped" host took to Twitter and shared an anecdote about how he saved Thanksgiving when he went to a family member's place to find that she had yet to start thawing the turkey. There was no way they could've defrosted the 12-pound bird in time for dinner, so Allen adopted a realist approach and took his friend shopping. "Only one safe solution to that problem: go out and buy an unfrozen one (we did), and save the first one for Christmas," he wrote. Kudos to Allen for playing it safe and smart.

Some of Allen's fans thought it was the smart thing to do. "Much better than you biting into a cold bird on Thanksgiving, and telling your relative, 'Sorry, you've been chopped'," Scott Fornek wrote. A user was curious if the turkey could've been defrosted in 6 hours if they had put it in cold water and kept replacing it. "Twelve pounds? I wouldn't bet on it," Allen replied.