How long to cook a 12 lb turkey at 325°F
Short answer
About 2 hours 40 minutes unstuffed, or 3 hours 10 minutes stuffed. Start checking the thigh at two hours. It is done at 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part of the thigh, away from the bone — and it needs twenty minutes of rest after that.
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Your results
Roasting time
2 h 38
Rest before carving
28 min
Total, oven to table
3 h 05
Fridge thawing time
3 days / jours
Thirteen minutes per pound at 325°F, unstuffed. A 12 lb bird is the most common size sold and it feeds about twelve with leftovers, which is why this is the single most searched turkey question of the year — and why the answer needs to include the thawing, not just the roasting.
Stuffing adds thirty minutes, and it adds a requirement: the stuffing itself has to reach 165°F. It sits in the coldest part of the bird, absorbing juices, and a turkey whose thigh is perfect can easily have stuffing at 140°F in the middle. If that makes you uneasy, bake the stuffing in a dish alongside — it browns better anyway.
Measure in the thigh, not the breast, and keep the probe off the bone. The thigh is the last part to come up to temperature, so if it reads 165°F everything ahead of it already has. A probe touching bone reads the bone, which is hotter than the meat around it, and that is how a turkey comes out of the oven underdone with a thermometer saying otherwise.
Work backwards from dinner, not forwards from the oven. Twenty minutes of rest, forty minutes of gravy and carving, and the fact that ovens run cool when they are full — a 12 lb turkey for a six o'clock dinner goes in around half past two, and the calculator below will do the arithmetic for any other weight.
Related questions
How long to thaw a 12 lb turkey?
Three days in the fridge — 24 hours per 4-5 lb. Start on Monday for a Thursday dinner. Never thaw a turkey on the counter.
Should I baste the turkey?
It does less than people think and costs oven heat every time you open the door. Dry brine the day before instead — salt on the skin, uncovered in the fridge — which seasons the meat and dries the skin so it crisps.
What if the breast is done before the thigh?
Normal, and the reason to cover the breast loosely with foil once it browns. Dark meat needs longer; shielding the breast lets the thigh catch up without the white meat drying out.