Massage Your Thanksgiving Turkey with This Dry Rub

If you're looking for a dry rub that will leave your mouth wet for more I want to share with you a rub I use for ribs (with slight variation) when I'm barbecuing that will work really well. I rarely do dry rubs in specific measurements; I usually just throw ingredients together and taste afterwards to see if I like it or not. I'll put in some general guidelines so that you have an idea of how your dry rub should look for your Thanksgiving turkey.

Keep in mind that turkeys can vary in size from 15-25 pounds and more, so what I would recommend is creating enough rub to handle the biggest case. It will probably look like a cup give or take of dry rub by the time you're done putting in the ingredients.

Enough with the talk and on to the ingredients right? Here they are:

3 tablespoons Paprika

3 tablespoons Sea salt

2 tablespoons Black pepper

2 tablespoons Dry mustard

3 tablespoons Onion Powder

3 tablespoons Garlic Powder

3 tablespoons Poultry Seasoning

1 tablespoon Dried Parsley

2 tablespoons Cayenne Pepper

You can add more or less cayenne pepper depending on how spicy you want to make your turkey. Personally, I like a good spicy turkey so I may add 3 tablespoons for my taste. Keep in mind all of your guests may not like their meat spicy, so you may need to cut that down to one tablespoon. Also, if you're a bit leery about your Thanksgiving turkey coming out red due to the paprika, you can remove a tablespoon of the paprika without losing the flavor.

If you need to know where to get certain seasonings, check your local grocer. Most of these you can get at any grocery store. If you want to get them at an inexpensive cost, check a dollar store or a convenience store. It won't be the same brand name but the taste won't be compromised... neither will your wallet.

What I would recommend would be to apply the dry rub to your turkey overnight and place it in the refrigerator if you have the room for it. Dry rubs give the best flavor, in my opinion, when it's had time to sit on (or in) the meat at least overnight. Of course the longer it sets the more flavor you'll get. If you can't do it overnight, or you just picked up the Thanksgiving turkey on Thanksgiving Day, then give the dry rub at least a couple of hours to work into the meat before you bake or roast your turkey. I also like to slather any meat with a dry rub. You may prefer not to be as liberal with your dry rub, especially if you're not sure it will work. Either way is fine. The more you put on there, the more flavor you'll get at the end, however. If you'd like, you may want to reserve some of your dry rub as seasoning for your Thanksgiving turkey stuffing which will be put inside the turkey. By doing that you'll have the dry rub inside and out.

This dry rub will work just as well if you're frying your turkey; you're not limited to baking or roasting your turkey. I find more and more during Thanksgiving people are frying their turkeys instead of the traditional way of baking. I wouldn't change anything about the dry rub recipe if you're frying your turkey instead of baking or roasting it.

I hope your Thanksgiving turkey comes out beautiful and that massaging that dry rub into it will give you another reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving.