What happens if you deep fry a frozen turkey? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024

It’s the ultimate setup for a Thanksgiving Day disaster. The physics of water and its solid, liquid, and gas phases compels us not to do it.

One of the most enduring traditions in the United States is the Thanksgiving turkey. The one-time contender for the official bird of the nation — advanced even by Benjamin Franklin over the bald eagle — has been served at homes across the nation for centuries, with an estimated 46 million turkeys consumed nationally on the fourth Thursday of every November. Most frequently, the modern American family purchases a frozen turkey, and then begins thawing it days before the actual event. While many Americans roast their turkey in the oven, a popular trend in the early 21st century has been to deep fry your turkey: a fun production that cooks a turkey very quickly (often in just 45 minutes, as opposed to four hours or more for a 15–20 pound turkey) and gives it a delicious, unique flavor.

However, many who cook turkeys as part of our annual tradition run into a dilemma: they haven’t pulled their turkey out of the freezer early enough. What should one do with a still-frozen (either completely or partially) turkey? Turkeys normally require three or more days to fully defrost in the refrigerator, so how do you salvage…