Recipes, guides and kitchen know-how. Mostly useful, occasionally silly.
The Christmas Dinner Timer: Your Whole Day, Worked Out
Tell it how big your turkey is and when you want to eat. The Christmas Dinner Timer works backwards and gives you the whole day, from defrosting to gravy, with alarms for your phone.
Christmas dinner isn't hard.
It's just eleven easy things that all need to be ready at exactly the same time, in one oven, while somebody asks where the Sellotape is.
So we built a timer that does the maths for you.
You do the cooking. It does the panicking.
How long to cook a turkey
The timer uses the standard UK rule printed by Tesco and delicious. magazine:
- Under 4kg: 20 minutes per kg, plus 70 minutes
- 4kg and over: 20 minutes per kg, plus 90 minutes
- Oven at 190C, 170C fan, gas 5
That's for a bird with nothing inside it. Cook the stuffing in its own tin - the Food Standards Agency says so, and it's right.
Always check the instructions on your turkey's packaging. Birds and ovens vary, and the pack wins.
Here are the turkey cooking times worked out for you:
| Turkey | Roasting time | Defrost in the fridge |
|---|---|---|
| 2kg | 1 hr 50 min | About 1 day |
| 3kg | 2 hr 10 min | About 1½ days |
| 4kg | 2 hr 50 min | About 2 days |
| 5kg | 3 hr 10 min | About 2½ days |
| 6kg | 3 hr 30 min | About 3 days |
| 7kg | 3 hr 50 min | About 3½ days |
| 8kg | 4 hr 10 min | About 4 days |
| 9kg | 4 hr 30 min | About 4½ days |
| 10kg | 4 hr 50 min | About 5 days |
Then rest it. Between 30 and 90 minutes, covered in foil and a tea towel.
The timer gives it an hour. That's not laziness. It's the hour your oven needs for everything else.
How do you know it's cooked?
Not by the clock. By the turkey.
The Food Standards Agency says cut into the thickest part. It should be steaming hot all the way through, with no pink meat and juices that run clear.
With a probe, the thickest part needs to hit 70C and stay there for 2 minutes, or 75C. Here's how to read a thermometer properly, and ours costs less than the cranberry sauce.
Guessing is for crackers. Not poultry.
Defrosting a frozen turkey
In the fridge, on the bottom shelf. Allow 10 to 12 hours per kg.
A big bird can take 3 to 5 days, so it goes in the fridge well before Christmas Eve.
Never on the worktop, the garage floor or the bath. We've heard all of them.
Tick "My turkey is frozen" in the timer and it'll tell you the exact day to start.
The oven Tetris
The turkey wants 190C. The potatoes want 200C. The Yorkshires want 220C.
You only have one oven. Probably.
The trick is the rest. The minute the turkey comes out, the oven goes up and the potatoes go in. Everything else follows:
- Roast potatoes: parboil 10 minutes, then roast 50 to 60 minutes at 200C (180C fan)
- Parsnips: parboil 5 minutes, roast 40 to 45 minutes
- Pigs in blankets and stuffing balls: 25 to 30 minutes
- Yorkshire puddings: 20 to 25 minutes at 220C (200C fan), right at the end
- Gravy: 10 to 15 minutes on the hob, using the turkey's resting juices
- Carrots: 15 to 20 minutes. Sprouts: 4 to 6 minutes. Not 40. It's not 1985.
Get the potatoes properly crisp by giving them room. Two trays beat one crowded tray every time. And a decent set of chopping boards means the carrots and the carving don't fight over the same one.
Leftovers
Get them in the fridge within two hours. Eat them within 48 hours, or freeze them.
That's the Food Standards Agency, not us. Although we agree about the turkey sandwiches.
Where the numbers come from
- Turkey times: the 20 minutes per kg plus 70 or 90 minutes rule at 190C (170C fan, gas 5) used in Tesco's turkey cooking guide and delicious. magazine's Christmas cook's guide.
- Food safety, defrosting, cooking checks and leftovers: the Food Standards Agency's Christmas food hygiene advice.
- Side dish times: the middle of the ranges given by Delia Online, delicious., Waitrose and Tesco Real Food.
- Resting: 30 to 90 minutes, from Tesco and Waitrose.
The timer is a plan, not a promise. Ovens vary. Check your pack, and check your turkey.
You're welcome to link to the Christmas Dinner Timer, or use the turkey times chart below with a credit and a link to this page. Want a version for your readers? Email hello@oliverskitchen.co.uk.
To embed the chart, copy this:
Now go and put the oven on. Well, not yet. Check the timer.
