Alas, the pièce de résistance. The centerpiece. The moment you’ve all been waiting for: French Onion Chicken!! Inspired by a melty, cozy, cheesy French bistro classic, adapted for your Thanksgiving table.

Yes, of course you can make it with turkey (instructions below) — but after years of turkey recipes every which way (brined, rubbed, braised, roasted, grilled, whole, spatchcocked, you name it), I’m making the case for ditching one big bird in favor of triple chickens. Here’s why: smaller in size, they roast more evenly. By the time the legs are tender, the breast meat is still juicy. Not all turkeys can say the same.

The method here further protects against dry, overcooked white meat by roasting the chickens breast-side down on a delicious pile of collapsed, sweet and brothy caramelized onions that form the base for your gravy— keeping the meat moist and protected while flavoring it like French onion soup.

This recipe also scales up or down beautifully depending on how many people you’re feeding. Not everyone needs to feed an army on Thanksgiving, and a simple, delicious roasted chicken– plus a baguette on the side for dipping into the brothy gravy– might just do the trick.

And because the chickens roast atop a bed of onions, the leftovers you end up with are absolutely divine.

*Cook’s note: This recipe calls for one extra large roasting pan– about 18-inches in size– to fit the three chickens. (Yes! You can use an aluminum pan from the grocery store.) Alternatively, you can roast two birds in one large roasting pan and the third bird in a 9 x 13-inch pyrex baking dish. If ya like, you can cut the recipe down by one-third and roast only two chickens. Or decrease by two-thirds and make just one bird!

**Make ahead: You can salt the chickens and roast the onions up to 2 days in advance.

***Turkey notes: Want to French Onion your turkey?! I approve! You’ll use the same amount of ingredients throughout the recipe for a turkey, but follow this ratio for the salt and pepper rub: Use 2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt for every pound of turkey. If you have a 15-pound bird, use 30 teaspoons (that is, 10 tablespoons) salt. If using a salt other than Diamond Crystal, use half the amount of salt. Calculate the pepper measurement as 20% of the salt measurement, so in our example, you’ll use 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper for your 15-pound bird. Note that we highly recommend seasoning the turkey two full days in advance.

If roasting turkey, your cook time will be longer! Get out your meat thermometer for best results, but expect to roast your turkey for 90-130 minutes (depending on the size of your bird) during the first stage until the breast reaches 150 degrees, and 15-30 minutes at the second stage of cooking, when the recipe calls for increasing the oven temperature to brown the bird.