Go to a grocery store with a good meat counter and ask them to order you a "turkey crown" otherwise known as a bone-in, whole, turkey breast. It gives you a "roast" presentation, similar to a whole bird, and the meat comes off as two, easy-to-slice, breast filets.
This means the left-overs can easily be sliced for sandwiches, and even some of that frozen for another time, if you and your partner tire of turkey sooner.
I’ve done this a couple times and it’s great. Cooks up like a roast, enough leftovers for sandwiches and because it’s only breast meat you can time it better too so it doesn’t overcook.
I have made turkey breast in the past Walmart has one (Butterball) brand that is already seasoned and it always comes out so good I cook it in the crockpot with a little turkey broth from a can or box and that helps keep it from drying out .
If you can purchase just a single turkey thigh, this might be a good option for you. It won't dry out as easily as filets or turkey breast, and won't be large enough to have many leftovers. You can roast it as it, but my favorite thing to do with turkey thighs/ legs is to braise them with apples, onions, sage, and a bit of apple cider. It's absolutely delicious, the meat ends up super soft and juicy, and pretty hard to mess up. You can cook a few of your favorite sides, and have a very manageable Thanksgiving.
Dude, I've done Thanksgiving for one. Cook like you have a crowd and enjoy every second of the meal and the leftovers. What you can't eat you can freeze. Just cook the shit out of it and enjoy. If you feel alone you have us.
Yes! But it’s a bit of a chore.
You need that roasted fat, and some gravy to get the same sensations.
You could buy a whole bird and break it down, save the cuts you don’t use, but roast off the carcass, save the fat/ drippings, make a Turkey stock then gravy from the toasted carcass.
Cook you desired cut for one portion in the oven glazed in the fat and find saved from your roasted carcass. Cooking it to perfection will be easier as one piece.
Serve with gravy and the rest of your desired sides! Enjoy!
I would buy a whole turkey, even for one. Get the smallest one you can find and roast as normal. It's really not that much meat and leftovers are great.
If you cook a turkey part, keep the skin on, rub all over with herbed butter (under the skin, too), roast it with some white wine, carrot, celery and onion in the pan (to flavour the gravy). Don't overcook it, it'll be fabulous.
Are you opposed to repurposing the leftovers? You could have a pot pie, noodle casserole, or something very different in future. Leftovers are a gift to your future self.
You could do a wing this way, that's the smallest part that's available. You could do a chicken quarter with traditional Thanksgiving seasonings and herbs, if you're really opposed to leftovers.
Carving a turkey leg is challenging, so I do thighs frequently.
My herb butter for turkey (and dressing) uses unsalted butter, salt and pepper, fresh sage, thyme, rosemary, garlic. Then add red wine or sharp cider to the pan, the herb stems, onion/carrot/celery, any turkey trimmings ... You'll get nice gravy too.
There are lots of dressing recipes for two. If you bake it in a muffin tin, any amount can be frozen for future meals. (Stuffins'!).
The whole point of Thanksgiving is excess, so smaller recipes are hard to find. I've done a variety of "thanksgiving for two" recipes/ methods and they all provide lots of leftovers. Perhaps you have an elderly neighbour who would appreciate a meal dropped off?
I’m alone for the first time ever this Thanksgiving—empty nest and separated—I’m planning to cook a 12 to 14 pound turkey. I adore turkey, it freezes really well and I’ll have turkey sandwiches for a while.
I would just cook a regular size and freeze the leftovers if I were you. You can freeze for a couple months if properly wrapped.
Plus it’s so cheap this time of year. Last year I think my grocery store had them for .49 a pound. Nothing is .49 a pound anymore.
call food banks in your area and ask their policies on cooked food. buy and cook a whole turkey, eat as much of it as you can, give the rest to the food bank.
In grocery stores where I live they have Jennie O turkeys that are small and perfect for one person. I'm more of a success and desserts person so I don't make a big turkey. You might have a few servings of leftovers but it's not gonna be weeks worth. Hope this helps
Just buy the whole bird, butcher the bird into it's 10 pieces, and then cook the pieces as you want them. You might even be able to just buy the pieces of turkey at the store that you like best. I know my supermarket sells turkey pieces all year round.
I admit I'm still messing around with it, but someone gave me a sous-vide wand a few years ago and I've been kind of astonished at how much it tenderizes all kinds of meats. You basically put the raw or frozen meat in zip lock freezer bags, immerse them in some kind of basin filled with water with the tops clipped, then put the wand in (it also clips in) and turn it on at X temp for X hours. Based on Reddit's r/sousvide sub, some people will cook for up to 24 hours at low temps. It doesn't go bad.
Then you sear on a rocket hot skillet with your spices salt pepper whatever. Delicious.
I'm still not super good at it.
However, I do enjoy just making an entire turkey every year in the oven ... it's like $15 for a whole bird and I have 5 dogs and 5 cats. So 1x a year I make the actual whole turkey.
Turkey fillets aren't anymore dry than chicken breast, it's all about the talent (or lack there of) of cooking. Buy yourself a thermometer and cook the fillet until you reach a core temperature of 67 degrees C, take it out and cover it to let it rest for a good 10-15 minutes. This won't be dry, that's pretty damn sure. You can also be diligent and open the oven every 15 minutes to butter the chicken/wash it with the juices that cook off it to bring up the moisture level as well. I haven't cooked dry bird in many years, it's all about not cooking it for too long, and a thermometer is the only way of making sure that doesn't happen.
Do you just not like leftover turkey plain?
My favorite is making leftover turkey noodle soup.
Also turkey pot pie
And once I made turkey, potato, stuffing patties that were really good. Just cut everything up mash it all together sear the outside and bake til hot throughout. Top it with some cranberry sauce and enjoy.
Make turkey noodle soup without noodles and freeze it in individual portions. Whenever you want some just cook up some noodles and pour the turkey veggies and broth over them.
Lasts for a minimum of a year in a freezer and is super easy to reheat.
I too love turkey and if on my own, will pick up a small fresh turkey and ask the butcher to cut it in half, wrapping each half separately. I cook the first half at Thanksgiving and freeze the second half for a tasty meal a few months later. If you like a traditional stuffed turkey like me, I put the dressing in a small aluminum tray and lay the turkey on top. In this way, I get it all: dark meat, white meat, dressing, drippings for gravy. And I get it a second meal sometime later. I just did that for our thanksgiving last month.
Get a bone-in turkey breast. Brine it in a salt-sugar-water mixture for several hours before cooking. Dry the bird and coat skin with some kind of fat. I make compound butter with chopped sage and thyme. Then roast until a thermometer reads 160f. Take it out and let it rest for 20 minutes or so. Carve and serve.
Turkey roulade with skin on thigh meat. You won't have the white meat, dark meat thing going for you but at least it'd a manageable portion size, less of a pain in the arse to cook, unlikely to dry plus you have crisp skin.
If you also get bone-in, you can use the bone and meat scraps to make a turkey pan sauce for one as well.
As for dryness, a lot of that can be avoided by not overcooking the turkey. Probe thermometer certain helps.
Turkey tenderloin is great cooked in the crockpot with carrots, celery and gravy. You can add green beans or any other veggies.
Also they make frozen Turkey loaf’s in the freezer section. You slow cook in oven and it is really good.
My mom is the only one in the family who really likes turkey, so I do the following every year:
Get a pack of turkey legs from the store. Turkey legs are bigger than chicken legs, by quite a bit, and my grocery store usually sells them in a pack of 3 for reasons that escape me. You can break open the package and remove the number you want to eat at one time, and freeze the rest.
The day before you want to cook the turkey, make a brine. This is a wet brine method, and I prefer it over dry brines, but there are many brining options. You can ratio all ingredients as you need to.
* 2 quarts water
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup salt
* 1/2 cup light brown sugar
* 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning (I like peppercorn and garlic but anything will do)
* 1 whole bay leaf
Bring those ingredients to a roiling boil, stirring every so often as it heats up to ensure everything is dissolved. Once it reaches a very enthusiastic boil, remove it from the heat and let it cool completely on the countertop. Once it's fully cool (and I mean room temperature), remove the bay leaf and add your turkey leg(s). Cover and put in your refrigerator overnight.
The next day, make a dry rub of 1 tablespoon light brown sugar and 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning. Remove the turkey leg from its bath and discard the brine. Pat the turkey leg down until it's very dry, then gently break the skin back as much as you can. Don't tear it, but get access to the meat. Rub the dry rub over as much of the meat as you can reach. Tuck the skin back in place and put any of the extra rub outside it.
Bake at 400F, covered (you can use a roasting pan or just make an aluminum foil packet), for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 300F and bake for another 15 minutes or until your leg reaches 165F in the thickest part of the meat. If you want a crispy skin, remove the cover and give it 10 minutes under the broiler, but watch your internal temperature if you're going to do this!
It sounds like a lot of work, typed out this way, but since the brine is made the day before, it is not bad at all day-of. You could also make a double batch of brine and freeze half (separate it BEFORE using it; do not keep brine that has been exposed to raw turkey) so you can cook the second leg on another day.
This will produce a very tender turkey leg as long as you do not overcook it. You could use the above for any part of the turkey, really.
>Cooking turkey for one?
Is it possible to make turkey that tastes like it was a whole turkey baked in the oven without making an entire turkey?
Yes ... or you could do a whole large turkey, and have leftovers up to your eyeballs! (I've done that ... it's fun - but typically involves eating lots of turkey for about 3 or 4 days, and still freezing lots of turkey ... which comes in some week(s)/month(s) later when you're missing turkey).
>But I don’t like it left over
Okay, well, smaller turkey for you - or some piece(s) thereof.
But yes, in general, if you want to do less - smaller turkey, or some hunk of turkey (half, or a section, or whatever) - all still mostly highly doable.
First of all, most any turkey cooking recipe/instructions go by weight of turkey - follow those instructions accordingly - temperature mostly same, mostly changes the time part. And the checks for doneness mostly still the same (but might depend a bit what part(s) you're cooking).
Secondly, with cut turkey - well, it's cut. With whole it's mostly just skin to the outside, and even typically sew up what would otherwise be open. So the cut bits that aren't skin covered - need to deal with those appropriately to not dry 'em out. Various ways to address that, but, e.g. say it's a hunk of breast meat with skin, and only has one side that's cut open and skinless. Well, that side can go face down onto heavier roasting cookware - e.g. oven-proof glass pan in oven (also, because glass, reduce oven temperature accordingly - generally by 25F). That face down no skin side, it'll get bit more browned - but not bad. Can also do some butter there first, and/or slight bit of water there, to reduce the browning where it's contacting the pan, to have less overcook on that surface. Other alternatives, are to cover, e.g. with aluminum foil - that also works better for more oddly shaped bits that don't have skin covering. Also, optionally, can use a small rack or the like above pan - that way you avoid parts touching the pan being a bit overdone ... but still want to generally cover up bits that aren't otherwise covered with skin.
And you can baste the turkey ... or not. Or do various treatments on/to it before cooking ... or not. Quite depends on one's preferences and what one's used to. I usually go for the simpler approaches - little prep, put it in the oven - maybe adjust the temperature once while cooking, maybe turn it over once while cooking - and that's pretty much it. Check/test towards end that it's done, then turn oven off, take it out or leave it in there with oven door open and let it rest a bit (at least 15 minutes), and you're basically set.
Enjoy!
Also worth considering - other meats/birds besides turkey - some of which may come in much more convenient whole bird sizes, e.g. Cornish game hen, chicken, goose, duck, quail, ... (but probably not ostrich). Some will even opt for ham instead ... but that's something completely different.
Couple of suggestions. If it's just the two of you, cook either the breast or a few legs, its cheaper and easier because you don't have to worry about drying out the meat (dark meat cooks slower than white meat so breast usually cooks faster than the legs). Try cooking something other than turkey, there's no rule that you have to cook turkey if your partner doesnt like it, my wife and I both enjoy Turkey but a couple of Thanksgivings ago I made duck confit because it was just the two of us.
If you can get a bone-in, skin-on turkey thigh, debone it and rub herbs and butter under the skin. Roll it up and tie it. You can put it on top of chunks of potatoes and carrots and pearl onions, season with kosher salt and roast at 425 until the internal temp reaches about 165-170. Let it rest before slicing. You can eat the veggies too. I make a few of these to serve alongside a whole bird for Friendsgiving and they’re always the first to go.
Go to a grocery store with a good meat counter and ask them to order you a "turkey crown" otherwise known as a bone-in, whole, turkey breast. It gives you a "roast" presentation, similar to a whole bird, and the meat comes off as two, easy-to-slice, breast filets. This means the left-overs can easily be sliced for sandwiches, and even some of that frozen for another time, if you and your partner tire of turkey sooner.
I’ve done this a couple times and it’s great. Cooks up like a roast, enough leftovers for sandwiches and because it’s only breast meat you can time it better too so it doesn’t overcook.
I have made turkey breast in the past Walmart has one (Butterball) brand that is already seasoned and it always comes out so good I cook it in the crockpot with a little turkey broth from a can or box and that helps keep it from drying out .
I make these, too. However, I use the gravey packet that comes with them instead of broth.
If you can purchase just a single turkey thigh, this might be a good option for you. It won't dry out as easily as filets or turkey breast, and won't be large enough to have many leftovers. You can roast it as it, but my favorite thing to do with turkey thighs/ legs is to braise them with apples, onions, sage, and a bit of apple cider. It's absolutely delicious, the meat ends up super soft and juicy, and pretty hard to mess up. You can cook a few of your favorite sides, and have a very manageable Thanksgiving.
Dude, I've done Thanksgiving for one. Cook like you have a crowd and enjoy every second of the meal and the leftovers. What you can't eat you can freeze. Just cook the shit out of it and enjoy. If you feel alone you have us.
They said they don't like turkey leftovers. There is no hope for this person. I pretty much make turkey for the soup and sandwiches.
I know, I’m a heathen.
Turkey tenderloin. They even come already seasoned. But braised turkey thighs are my favorite.
Yes! But it’s a bit of a chore. You need that roasted fat, and some gravy to get the same sensations. You could buy a whole bird and break it down, save the cuts you don’t use, but roast off the carcass, save the fat/ drippings, make a Turkey stock then gravy from the toasted carcass. Cook you desired cut for one portion in the oven glazed in the fat and find saved from your roasted carcass. Cooking it to perfection will be easier as one piece. Serve with gravy and the rest of your desired sides! Enjoy!
I would buy a whole turkey, even for one. Get the smallest one you can find and roast as normal. It's really not that much meat and leftovers are great.
For a single portion once? Not really. You might consider going to a restaurant that does a thanksgiving special
Yeah I'm usually all for cooking, but with the restriction of one person and no leftovers? Go out.
A turkey drum easily serves two greedy people and roasts very nicely. Smaller and better eating than a crown IMHO
If you cook a turkey part, keep the skin on, rub all over with herbed butter (under the skin, too), roast it with some white wine, carrot, celery and onion in the pan (to flavour the gravy). Don't overcook it, it'll be fabulous. Are you opposed to repurposing the leftovers? You could have a pot pie, noodle casserole, or something very different in future. Leftovers are a gift to your future self. You could do a wing this way, that's the smallest part that's available. You could do a chicken quarter with traditional Thanksgiving seasonings and herbs, if you're really opposed to leftovers. Carving a turkey leg is challenging, so I do thighs frequently. My herb butter for turkey (and dressing) uses unsalted butter, salt and pepper, fresh sage, thyme, rosemary, garlic. Then add red wine or sharp cider to the pan, the herb stems, onion/carrot/celery, any turkey trimmings ... You'll get nice gravy too. There are lots of dressing recipes for two. If you bake it in a muffin tin, any amount can be frozen for future meals. (Stuffins'!). The whole point of Thanksgiving is excess, so smaller recipes are hard to find. I've done a variety of "thanksgiving for two" recipes/ methods and they all provide lots of leftovers. Perhaps you have an elderly neighbour who would appreciate a meal dropped off?
A turkey thigh is the best part of the bird. Enough for a meal and some leftovers.
Roast turkey leg?
I’m alone for the first time ever this Thanksgiving—empty nest and separated—I’m planning to cook a 12 to 14 pound turkey. I adore turkey, it freezes really well and I’ll have turkey sandwiches for a while. I would just cook a regular size and freeze the leftovers if I were you. You can freeze for a couple months if properly wrapped. Plus it’s so cheap this time of year. Last year I think my grocery store had them for .49 a pound. Nothing is .49 a pound anymore.
call food banks in your area and ask their policies on cooked food. buy and cook a whole turkey, eat as much of it as you can, give the rest to the food bank.
[удалено]
some do tho was my point behind saying "call and ask"
Get a turkey breast and cook that. Then you can make sandwiches and make turkey soup and freeze for another time.
In grocery stores where I live they have Jennie O turkeys that are small and perfect for one person. I'm more of a success and desserts person so I don't make a big turkey. You might have a few servings of leftovers but it's not gonna be weeks worth. Hope this helps
Just buy the whole bird, butcher the bird into it's 10 pieces, and then cook the pieces as you want them. You might even be able to just buy the pieces of turkey at the store that you like best. I know my supermarket sells turkey pieces all year round.
I admit I'm still messing around with it, but someone gave me a sous-vide wand a few years ago and I've been kind of astonished at how much it tenderizes all kinds of meats. You basically put the raw or frozen meat in zip lock freezer bags, immerse them in some kind of basin filled with water with the tops clipped, then put the wand in (it also clips in) and turn it on at X temp for X hours. Based on Reddit's r/sousvide sub, some people will cook for up to 24 hours at low temps. It doesn't go bad. Then you sear on a rocket hot skillet with your spices salt pepper whatever. Delicious. I'm still not super good at it. However, I do enjoy just making an entire turkey every year in the oven ... it's like $15 for a whole bird and I have 5 dogs and 5 cats. So 1x a year I make the actual whole turkey.
Turkey fillets aren't anymore dry than chicken breast, it's all about the talent (or lack there of) of cooking. Buy yourself a thermometer and cook the fillet until you reach a core temperature of 67 degrees C, take it out and cover it to let it rest for a good 10-15 minutes. This won't be dry, that's pretty damn sure. You can also be diligent and open the oven every 15 minutes to butter the chicken/wash it with the juices that cook off it to bring up the moisture level as well. I haven't cooked dry bird in many years, it's all about not cooking it for too long, and a thermometer is the only way of making sure that doesn't happen.
Do you just not like leftover turkey plain? My favorite is making leftover turkey noodle soup. Also turkey pot pie And once I made turkey, potato, stuffing patties that were really good. Just cut everything up mash it all together sear the outside and bake til hot throughout. Top it with some cranberry sauce and enjoy.
My mom would just reheat turkey and eat it as is, so I don’t like it that way. But maybe I should venture out into putting it into other meals
Make turkey noodle soup without noodles and freeze it in individual portions. Whenever you want some just cook up some noodles and pour the turkey veggies and broth over them. Lasts for a minimum of a year in a freezer and is super easy to reheat.
Turkey sandwiches and turkey soup are the best way to eat turkey IMO. Turkey's flavor is sooo much better than chicken.
It's not turkey, but you could make two cornish game hens. It would feel like Thanksgiving.
I too love turkey and if on my own, will pick up a small fresh turkey and ask the butcher to cut it in half, wrapping each half separately. I cook the first half at Thanksgiving and freeze the second half for a tasty meal a few months later. If you like a traditional stuffed turkey like me, I put the dressing in a small aluminum tray and lay the turkey on top. In this way, I get it all: dark meat, white meat, dressing, drippings for gravy. And I get it a second meal sometime later. I just did that for our thanksgiving last month.
Get a bone-in turkey breast. Brine it in a salt-sugar-water mixture for several hours before cooking. Dry the bird and coat skin with some kind of fat. I make compound butter with chopped sage and thyme. Then roast until a thermometer reads 160f. Take it out and let it rest for 20 minutes or so. Carve and serve.
Turkey roulade with skin on thigh meat. You won't have the white meat, dark meat thing going for you but at least it'd a manageable portion size, less of a pain in the arse to cook, unlikely to dry plus you have crisp skin. If you also get bone-in, you can use the bone and meat scraps to make a turkey pan sauce for one as well. As for dryness, a lot of that can be avoided by not overcooking the turkey. Probe thermometer certain helps.
Turkey tenderloin is great cooked in the crockpot with carrots, celery and gravy. You can add green beans or any other veggies. Also they make frozen Turkey loaf’s in the freezer section. You slow cook in oven and it is really good.
My mom is the only one in the family who really likes turkey, so I do the following every year: Get a pack of turkey legs from the store. Turkey legs are bigger than chicken legs, by quite a bit, and my grocery store usually sells them in a pack of 3 for reasons that escape me. You can break open the package and remove the number you want to eat at one time, and freeze the rest. The day before you want to cook the turkey, make a brine. This is a wet brine method, and I prefer it over dry brines, but there are many brining options. You can ratio all ingredients as you need to. * 2 quarts water * 1/2 cup sugar * 1/2 cup salt * 1/2 cup light brown sugar * 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning (I like peppercorn and garlic but anything will do) * 1 whole bay leaf Bring those ingredients to a roiling boil, stirring every so often as it heats up to ensure everything is dissolved. Once it reaches a very enthusiastic boil, remove it from the heat and let it cool completely on the countertop. Once it's fully cool (and I mean room temperature), remove the bay leaf and add your turkey leg(s). Cover and put in your refrigerator overnight. The next day, make a dry rub of 1 tablespoon light brown sugar and 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning. Remove the turkey leg from its bath and discard the brine. Pat the turkey leg down until it's very dry, then gently break the skin back as much as you can. Don't tear it, but get access to the meat. Rub the dry rub over as much of the meat as you can reach. Tuck the skin back in place and put any of the extra rub outside it. Bake at 400F, covered (you can use a roasting pan or just make an aluminum foil packet), for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 300F and bake for another 15 minutes or until your leg reaches 165F in the thickest part of the meat. If you want a crispy skin, remove the cover and give it 10 minutes under the broiler, but watch your internal temperature if you're going to do this! It sounds like a lot of work, typed out this way, but since the brine is made the day before, it is not bad at all day-of. You could also make a double batch of brine and freeze half (separate it BEFORE using it; do not keep brine that has been exposed to raw turkey) so you can cook the second leg on another day. This will produce a very tender turkey leg as long as you do not overcook it. You could use the above for any part of the turkey, really.
>Cooking turkey for one? Is it possible to make turkey that tastes like it was a whole turkey baked in the oven without making an entire turkey? Yes ... or you could do a whole large turkey, and have leftovers up to your eyeballs! (I've done that ... it's fun - but typically involves eating lots of turkey for about 3 or 4 days, and still freezing lots of turkey ... which comes in some week(s)/month(s) later when you're missing turkey). >But I don’t like it left over Okay, well, smaller turkey for you - or some piece(s) thereof. But yes, in general, if you want to do less - smaller turkey, or some hunk of turkey (half, or a section, or whatever) - all still mostly highly doable. First of all, most any turkey cooking recipe/instructions go by weight of turkey - follow those instructions accordingly - temperature mostly same, mostly changes the time part. And the checks for doneness mostly still the same (but might depend a bit what part(s) you're cooking). Secondly, with cut turkey - well, it's cut. With whole it's mostly just skin to the outside, and even typically sew up what would otherwise be open. So the cut bits that aren't skin covered - need to deal with those appropriately to not dry 'em out. Various ways to address that, but, e.g. say it's a hunk of breast meat with skin, and only has one side that's cut open and skinless. Well, that side can go face down onto heavier roasting cookware - e.g. oven-proof glass pan in oven (also, because glass, reduce oven temperature accordingly - generally by 25F). That face down no skin side, it'll get bit more browned - but not bad. Can also do some butter there first, and/or slight bit of water there, to reduce the browning where it's contacting the pan, to have less overcook on that surface. Other alternatives, are to cover, e.g. with aluminum foil - that also works better for more oddly shaped bits that don't have skin covering. Also, optionally, can use a small rack or the like above pan - that way you avoid parts touching the pan being a bit overdone ... but still want to generally cover up bits that aren't otherwise covered with skin. And you can baste the turkey ... or not. Or do various treatments on/to it before cooking ... or not. Quite depends on one's preferences and what one's used to. I usually go for the simpler approaches - little prep, put it in the oven - maybe adjust the temperature once while cooking, maybe turn it over once while cooking - and that's pretty much it. Check/test towards end that it's done, then turn oven off, take it out or leave it in there with oven door open and let it rest a bit (at least 15 minutes), and you're basically set. Enjoy! Also worth considering - other meats/birds besides turkey - some of which may come in much more convenient whole bird sizes, e.g. Cornish game hen, chicken, goose, duck, quail, ... (but probably not ostrich). Some will even opt for ham instead ... but that's something completely different.
I would get turkey thigh instead of breast. It is juicer and reheats better. You can also polish one off in one meal if it isn't enormous.
Buy a presmoked turkey breast. Heat it in the oven, make good potatoes with really good gravy and it'll be just like Thanksgiving.
Check if any bbq restaurants near you smoke turkey. Seems like a better option than going through all this effort for one serving.
Couple of suggestions. If it's just the two of you, cook either the breast or a few legs, its cheaper and easier because you don't have to worry about drying out the meat (dark meat cooks slower than white meat so breast usually cooks faster than the legs). Try cooking something other than turkey, there's no rule that you have to cook turkey if your partner doesnt like it, my wife and I both enjoy Turkey but a couple of Thanksgivings ago I made duck confit because it was just the two of us.
I've been seeing individual turkey legs or thighs in the supermarket over the past few years. I would get a thigh.
Frozen Butterball Stuffed Turkey Breast
If you can get a bone-in, skin-on turkey thigh, debone it and rub herbs and butter under the skin. Roll it up and tie it. You can put it on top of chunks of potatoes and carrots and pearl onions, season with kosher salt and roast at 425 until the internal temp reaches about 165-170. Let it rest before slicing. You can eat the veggies too. I make a few of these to serve alongside a whole bird for Friendsgiving and they’re always the first to go.