25% Think This Is The Worst Way To Cook A Thanksgiving Turkey

When you think of Thanksgiving, you likely think of a beautiful dinner shared with family and friends. Platters of mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, and stuffing cover practically every inch of the table. There are drinks before the meal and pies waiting for after. And the centerpiece? A golden-brown, aromatic, perfectly roasted turkey.

Or maybe not roasted. Even though oven-roasting is considered by many to be the most traditional way to cook a turkey, it's not the only method. Some people may prefer to braise, sous-vide, or even deep-fry a turkey for the big holiday. Thanksgiving celebrators' tricks of choice usually come down to personal preference and how much time is available before loved ones arrive for dinner. With that being said, many people do agree on a single best way to cook a turkey — and how about the worst? Mashed conducted a poll of 609 U.S.-based respondents to find out.

In Mashed's survey asking respondents about the worst way to cook a turkey, the results were quite clear. A whopping 25.4% of respondents said that frying a turkey ranks as the worst method, perhaps because it requires buying a huge deep fryer. Up next was the beer can route, which a Food Network recipe explains involves cooking a turkey with an open can of beer inside its cavity, at 23.2%. Spatchcocking — or cutting out the backbone of the bird and flattening it for extra roasting speed, according to Serious Eats — got 21.2%.

Grilling a turkey landed in the middle, with 13.1% of voters naming it the worst turkey cooking method. Surprisingly, 10.5% of respondents said baking (or oven-roasting) was the worst, meaning the popular method is not necessarily voters' favorite turkey route on Thanksgiving day. Finally, 6.6% said that smoking a turkey was the worst, which means you may want to grab some wood if you haven't tried it yourself. At the end of the day, different families have different traditions, and that's perfectly OK. But if you stuff your turkey with White Castle sliders, as the chain's website suggests, you may be on your own.