For Thanksgiving, Two Chickens Are Better Than One Turkey

We are rounding the corner into what many people consider to be the most important food-related week of the year. The frantic/sluggish days of Thanksgiving are approaching, and with them come mounting stresses over how and what to cook, plus perhaps some family-related dread. Perhaps you never actually do anything cooking-related to celebrate the holiday, to which I say: that is totally fine! Just offer to do dishes. But if you are in the driver’s seat for Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving or any other -giving, I have a proposition for you: don’t cook a turkey.

Turkey, as you may have heard, is frustrating to cook and often gross. Cooking these big-ass birds often means sacrificing dry white meat for tasty dark meat, or purchasing overly expensive equipment you’ll never use again, or—god forbid—learning about something called spatchcocking. (Makes me wanna go to confession just typing it out!!)

And while purists will protest with claims of “tradition,” remember that this holiday is essentially built on genocide, we’re all living on stolen land, and it’s far easier to cook smaller birds that taste better. So get in loser, we’re roasting chickens.

For Thanksgiving last year, I tried something new for me, and new for my family: I roasted two chickens instead of fussing over a turkey. By the end of Thanksgiving, I felt like I was in that scene in The Matrix when the two hot people in leather jackets avoid a bunch of bullets by having very flexible backs. I had finally hacked the system, is what I’m trying to say. Because you don’t need a turkey. You don’t need to cook something that requires upwards of 5 hours of oven time, when you could be spending that time “playing football” or watching Schitt’s Creek on Netflix.

You see, chicken tastes better than turkey. It just does! And the bird’s smaller size means more even cooking, and you can fit more than one of them in a standard oven, and when was the last time you tasted a crispy bit of chicken skin? Chicken skin is delicious. You should have some for Thanksgiving.

My preferred recipe is this one from Melissa Clark, which has you wet-brine your chickies in a bag full of salty feta water (yes), which means juicy meat and crispy skin and delicious pan drippings. On “The Big Day,” you drain your bags of chicken and pat the birds dry and rub them vigorously with a mix of oregano and other stuff, and then you roast them, and serve them golden brown and crackling over a bed of arugula and feta-chicken dripping dressing. It is pretty wild, it will make your mom or whoever is at the dinner table go insane, and it tastes a hell of a lot more delicious than turkey. It even pairs nicely with mashed potatoes.

Of course, maybe you don’t like chicken that much. Maybe you’re jonesing to cook a pork shoulder, or some pheasant, or a whole dorade. What I’m saying is, do that thing—the fun and delicious thing—instead of exclusively making turkey just because you think you have to. It will make your Thanksgiving just a little more exciting, and it will remind you that cooking can be—yes, you heard it here first—fun.