Butterball Turkey and Freddie Prinze Jr share how to make Thanksgiving stress-free

A stress-free Thanksgiving is within your grasp. With cooking tips from Freddie Prinze Jr and Butterball Turkey Talk Line, you can be the ultimate host.

For many people, Thanksgiving is considered the ultimate food holiday. The Butterball Turkey Talk Line has been a trusted resource for every cook during the holiday season. This year, Freddie Prinze Jr. partnered with the turkey experts to make this year’s holiday cooking event even less stressful.

Thanksgiving stress can come in all types of forms. From worries about dealing with family to cooking jitters, the annual feast celebration often comes with an extra side of stress. While it can be easy to just order out, a home cooked meal can often create a lasting memory.

While the holiday catastrophes can often spark holiday lore (who doesn’t remember that time your sister in law caught your sweater on fire), those “don’t” moments shouldn’t scare anyone away from creating a tasty holiday meal. Achieving cooking redemption is within reach.

As everyone starts to prepare for this annual eating extravaganza, one phrase can assist every cook, even the expert chef. The best advice to succeed in the kitchen, every time, is to just keep it simple.

For over 40 years, the Butterball Turkey Talk Line has been the voice of calm during those cooking storms. While these “phone a friend” cooks might have heard it all, (no you cannot thaw a turkey on Thanksgiving morning), that friendly voice on the phone might be the stress reliever you need this holiday season.

Of course, those knowledgeable turkey experts can’t cook Thanksgiving for you, but they can provide some needed support. From simple tricks to ingenious hacks, they could turn Thanksgiving from a fail to a flourishing success.

This year, Butterball Turkey invited Freddie Prinze Jr to be its first ever ultimate Thanksgiving host. While many people know him from his various movie and television roles. Prinze is a cookbook author and a good chef. More importantly he has a few tricks and tips that can make any holiday meal a rousing success.

Recently, FoodSided chatted with Prinze about his approach to Thanksgiving, an easy way to cook a turkey and cooking for friends and family. The biggest takeaway from our conversation is that Prinze understands the real meaning of a holiday gathering, spending time with the people who are important to your life.

Prinze admitted that people feel the pressure that a big holiday meal, like Thanksgiving, can impose. From carrying on family traditions to cooking for a larger group of people, this one dinner is far different than the regular Thursday dinner.

As we chatted, Prinze mentioned that this Thanksgiving dinner might be a long, multi-hour cooking event, but people forget it isn’t just four hours constantly standing behind a stove. The home cook needs to embrace those moments where she can step away from the kitchen, sip a glass of wine and have a conversation with her guests.

One key to his Thanksgiving dinner is embracing the concept of “set it and forget it” dishes. While this concept seems straightforward, it is an idea often overlooked in moments of stress.

For example, Prinze commented on how the turkey, itself, is one of those set it and forget it moments. With a Butterball Turkey, the turkey is already brined, which helps to keep the turkey juicy and moist. Once you put it in the oven, you don’t have to fuss over it every single minute.

Even if you are a little nervous about the final result, the Butterball Turkey Talk Line is on stand-by. Prinze understands that people might be embarrassed to ask grandma for help. No one wants to be remembered as the cook who forgot to take the giblets out of the bird. Sometimes a calm voice can be the perfect reminder that everything can, and will be, ok.

Of course, it can be helpful to have a few tricks up your sleeve to help make a tasty Thanksgiving meal. While Prinze has a more traditional holiday turkey recipe in his cookbook, Back to the Kitchen: 75 Delicious, Real Recipes (& True Stories) from a Food-Obsessed Actor: A Cookbook, he discovered an interesting turkey twist this year.

Freddie Prinze, Jr turkey recipe using Butterball Turkey, photo provided by Butterball

If you are just cooking a turkey breast, you can use an air fryer to cook it. With so many people loving air fry cooking, this idea could be the star of your Thanksgiving table. While you can’t necessarily cook a huge turkey, this option is a great way to take the stress out of the holiday meal.

Whether you simplify the turkey cooking or create the ultimate holiday feast, Prinze reminded FoodSided that the holiday is about coming together and sharing a moment. At his house, friends always have a seat at the table. From the kids dancing around to friends sharing stories, the focus on being in the moment is the best part of any holiday meal.

If the home cook, both newbie and experienced, can take one piece of advice from both Butterball Turkey and Freddie Prinze Jr, it is the holiday feast doesn’t need a side dish of stress. Help is a phone call away. And more importantly, being thankful for the people around the table is the most important part of any holiday meal.

What is your best tip for planning a holiday meal? Are your committed to taking the stress out of the equation this year?