12 Best Mail-Order Turkeys to Buy for Thanksgiving 2023

ButcherBox is one of the best popular meat delivery services we've tried. Typically, you have to sign up to get in on the goods, but not this year: Thanksgiving turkeys ($79) are available for a one-time purchase through ButcherBox with no membership required. 

If you do sign up for a ButcherBox membership between now, you'll get a free turkey in your first box in time for the holiday. Subscriptions start at $169 and include 9 to 14 pounds of beef, chicken and seafood and can be paused or canceled at any time. 

Walmart is a good bet for finding the cheapest anything, and that rings true for budget-friendly birds. You can have a 16- to 24-pound Shady Brook young turkey delivered same day for less than $20. Feel free to spend the rest of your Thanksgiving budget on wine.

Porter Road is another solid online butcher and has 13 to 15-pound Jolly Farm turkeys on sale for $140. The cutoff to order is Nov. 15 if you want delivery by Thanksgiving. 

This 15-pound turkey from Blackwing Farm is available for $115 over at Crowd Cow -- one of the many great online butchers that have emerged lately. This bird is big enough to serve 10 to 12 people and is raised free of hormones and antibiotics.

Crowd Cow has one of the widest selections of meats of the online services we've tested, so if you'd like to tack some rib roasts or steaks onto a turkey order, this is the best place to order.

If you really want to get your Thanksgiving gathering some social media attention, go for the turducken. That's a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey. Many of them have stuffing, too, so we're talking a lot of food all ready to roast. Goldbelly has large turduckens to feed as many as 25 people.

The upscale retailer might be best known for cookware and tableware, but it's actually got a wide selection of turkeys available for purchase online including both prebrined and precooked birds. Snag a 6- to 10-pound Diestel turkey brined in lemon and herb for $130, for instance.

Williams Sonoma also has Willie Bird free-range prebrined turkeys that come in sizes all the way up to 22 pounds or just snag an organic boneless breast if your group is partial to white meat.

These turkeys are famous and well-awarded in the UK and they've recently flown across the pond. KellyBronze birds are raised on a diet "more strict than organic," and don't just live in open pastures but in literal woods like wild birds. They are actually bred to be wild and then aged twice as long as standard turkeys (more cost for them but more flavor for you) and hand-plucked before being shipped to you -- raw, not frozen. These fancy birds cook faster than most turkeys so be wary of the instructions when your KB arrives.

Maybe turkey isn't your thing on Thanksgiving. If so, that's totally OK. For those who claim chicken as their poultry of preference, I'd suggest Cooks Venture. These certified humanely raised heirloom chickens were bred to be healthy, not just big, and raised with sustainable farming practices. You can have these great eatin' birds sent to your front door for $26 each when you buy six.

These pasture-raised turkeys are brought up on a 500-acre regenerative ranch in the Sierra Foothills of California. As good as the birds have it, the strict farming standards and practices are dually important since they net minimal negative impact on the environment, unlike factory farms. 

The regen turkeys start at $76 and can be ordered online now or you can opt for a brined and spatchcocked bird for $90.

For those keeping kosher during the holidays, Goldbelly sells double-certified kosher turkeys from Charm City Kosher in Baltimore. Choose a 14- to 16-pounder starting at $170.

Listen, if you've committed to hosting Thanksgiving but the idea of cooking an entire turkey is keeping you up at night or you simply just don't want to deal with all of that, I'm here to tell you that you've got options. Buying a precooked turkey online does have a higher likelihood of it drying out, but the exception is smoked turkey. It's a more complicated cooking process. 

A tried and true barbecue outfit like Southside Market will have it down, and smoked turkeys keep their moisture much better than oven-roasted. Southside will deliver these precooked 12- to 14-pound turkeys anywhere in the country. All you do is warm it in the oven on the big day for 60-90 minutes at 350 degrees F and you're good to go. 

Note: We personally tested this precooked turkey, which was full of flavor and not at all dry.

Fancy online food purveyor Goldbelly also has a slew of precooked turkey options if Southside's birds sell out.