How To Cook an Entire Frozen Turkey In Your Instant Pot This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is only a few days away. Have you defrosted your turkey? 

Depending on the size of your turkey, it might be too late to defrost it in time for Thanksgiving, but no worries. You have options. You could order take out, or you could consider cooking your turkey in your Instant Pot.

Preparing dinner for Thanksgiving can be very stressful, and part of that stress includes making sure the turkey is defrosted and in the oven in plenty of time for Thanksgiving dinner. This includes a lot of planning.

With the CDC recommending that families don’t travel for Thanksgiving but stay home and celebrate with just the members of their household instead, many people who usually travel for Thanksgiving might find themselves preparing a turkey for the first time.

Word of advice: go by your turkey right now if you haven’t already. If you are looking for a small turkey since you’ll most likely only be feeding a few people, you need to get that turkey right away. There aren’t many small turkeys left in stores. 

If you don’t want to have to deal with defrosting your turkey ahead of time, you’re also going to want to make sure you buy an Instant Pot if you don’t already have one. It turns out that you can cook a whole turkey inside an Instant Pot, and you don’t have to defrost it first. 

No, this is not too good to be true, and to prove it, Six Sisters’ Stuff posted a video on YouTube that shows the whole process from start to finish. There is crucial advice including bringing the inner pot from your Instant Pot with you to the grocery store so you can make sure the turkey you buy is going to fit. Just ignore the strange looks you get from other shoppers.

Watch the video below to see how quick and easy it is to cook a whole turkey in your Instant Pot. It’ll be fall off the bone tender and juicy, and you can use your oven to cook side dishes like green bean casserole and biscuits.

As mentioned in the video, you’re going to want to make sure you have a small turkey that will fit in your Instant Pot. Somewhere between 4 pounds and 10 pounds should work depending on the size of your Instant Pot. You will be able to cook the entire cook from its frozen state in 2 hours or less. A 10 pound turkey, the largest size that would probably fit in an Instant Pot, will cook in just 100 minutes.

Besides the actual turkey, you will only need a cup of chicken broth, water or similar liquid, butter and seasoning of choice. Just salt and pepper would work, but you could use your favorite seasoning mix instead. You can read complete directions on the Six Sisters’ Stuff blog.

Are you going to try cooking your Thanksgiving turkey in your Instant Pot?