Recipe

Andy Marshall’s Smoked Dry-Rub Turkey

Low and slow is the way to go this Thanksgiving, says the Puckett’s proprietor

By Steve Russell
Recipe by Andy Marshall

November 13, 2024

Photo: Amy Whidby

Andy Marshall covers his turkey with a Memphis-inspired barbecue rub.

“I was born in Memphis, where smoking meats is a cultural rite of passage,” says Andy Marshall, who turned a community grocery store southwest of Nashville into the first Puckett’s Restaurant in 1998, a comfort-food success story that has since spawned eight locations in Tennessee and Alabama.

“We started smoking turkeys for our customers in the late 1990s, which grew from smoking dozens to smoking hundreds,” he says. The low-and-slow method not only amps up flavor but produces a deliciously juicy result.

photo: Courtesy of A. Marshall Hospitality

Fans of Marshall’s preparation, which gets a flavor boost from a barbecue dry rub (there’s that Memphis influence again), aren’t limited to Puckett’s patrons. “As long as I can remember, when we have big family holiday gatherings, I’m asked to smoke a turkey,” he says. “I always find room on the smoker and time to do it.”

Ingredients

Smoked Dry-Rub Turkey
- 1 cup melted butter
- 1 tbsp. barbecue dry rub of choice, plus more
- 1 whole turkey (18–19 lb.)

Preparation

Preheat a smoker to 225°F. Remove the giblets from the turkey cavity. (Save for gravy if desired.) If there is an internal button thermometer, remove and discard. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels.

Stir the barbecue dry rub into the melted butter. Use a meat syringe (available at many supermarkets around Thanksgiving, or from Amazon) to inject 2 oz. of the butter mixture into the front and 2 oz. into the back of both turkey breasts, and 2 oz. into each thigh. Rub the remaining 2 oz. between the skin and breast meat. Generously season the outside and inside of the turkey with more barbecue rub.

Place the turkey in the smoker. (Remove upper rack if necessary to fit.) Add fresh wood and smoke for 3 hours, maintaining a temperature of 225°F. After 3 hours, use a meat thermometer to start checking the temperature in the thigh every 30 minutes. When it hits 165°F and the thickest part of the breast reads at least 155°F, remove the turkey and place aluminum foil over the top. (Don’t wrap the entire bird.) Let rest at room temperature for one hour before carving.

Steve Russell is a Garden & Gun contributing editor who also has written for Men’s Journal, Life, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. Born in Mississippi and raised in Tennessee, he resided in New Orleans and New York City before settling down in Charlottesville, Virginia, because it’s far enough south that biscuits are an expected component of a good breakfast.