Carving your turkey starts with carefully cutting through the leg joint and thigh meat to detach both. Use a sharp knife, apply firm pressure, then gently pull them away from the body with the leg.

The entire leg and thigh will come off easily, with a few shallow cuts with the tip of your knife to separate. Repeat this on the other leg and thigh.

Use a little pressure on the joint to detach the leg piece from the thigh. Set aside the dark meat.

Before you start carving the turkey breasts, remove the wings from its body.

Gently tug the turkey wings away and use a sharp knife to cut carefully around where they meet with both skin and meat so that they can be effectively detached at their joint.

Once done, lay these aside on your serving platter – doing this is not only for convenience but also enhances how it looks once arranged neatly. With those legs, thighs, and wings removed entirely or partially as needed, all that’s left to carve is the breast meat!

Now, it’s time to charge the breast from the rib cage. Start by making horizontal incisions from the bottom of the breast towards the breastbone.

Then, carve down along the side of the breastbone, starting from its peak and slicing downward. Then, utilize your knife while gently pulling with your hand to smoothly detach the entire breast.

Then, repeat on the second side. Be careful not to break the wishbone so you can save it for later.

Then, slice each breast for the dinner table by laying them flat on the cutting board and slicing them into thin ¼” strips against the grain.

Finally, divide the carved turkey into light meat and dark meat and serve with a side of simply turkey gravy or giblet gravy and all of your favorite Thanksgiving side dishes.