I eat a lot of turkey as a snack between meals since I am diabetic. I want to roast my own turkey breast so I can control what is in it but I need a recipe. I wanted to brine the turkey breast but all of the recipes I see call for sugar either in actual sugar or orange juice etc. Also they all seem to be for a whole turkey and I just want to do a breast.
Any suggestions or hints are welcome for a nice browned, tasty, roasted turkey breast.
I used this one this past Thanksgiving on boneless turkey breasts, using half the recipe Turkey Brine Recipe
It uses vegetable broth, salt, and herbs, nothing sweet. I let mine soak maybe 6 hours. They came out very juicy and with a nice herby flavor.
Even a simple brine of 2qts of water and 1/4 c salt will benefit the turkey a lot. Brine it for about an hour before roasting.
Brine and brine! What is brine?
What, straight on Turkey Breast is not good enough?
HEATHEN! BLASPHEMER!!!
Well, I may have to try out the herb thing, but I cannot for the life of me imagine brining one.
I got on Turkey Breasts years ago for my special kitty, to whom white meat turkey was nothing short of mana from the gods. When he knew I had it in the fridge, he’d be there howling every time I went near it. I would cook up a breast, cut it into pieces, put it in tupperware, put one in the fridge, the rest in the freezer, and he’d get his mana for days and sometimes weeks running. Me too.
I find homemade plain turkey to be bland and dry however I am liking the smoked turkey, mesquite turkey and rotisserie chicken sliced lunch meats but I would like to control more of what is in it and possibly save a little money but if it doens’t taste good I won’t eat it. Acording to what I saw on Alton Brown, the brine solution being of a differnt salinity that the turkey meat makes the solution flow through the meat bringing the other flavors and the water with it.
An hour in brine does as good as five seconds in brine: you got a turkey wet. Eight hours is quick for a brine, and overnight is not overdoing it either.
OP, if you have a Weber kettle, indirectly grilling a whole turkey breast is a great option.
Roast it to 155 or 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The markings on a lot of meat thermometers give a temperature of 180 F for poultry. If you roast a turkey breast to 180 F it will be tough and dry. Harmful bacteria such as salmonella and e. coli are killed at temperatures above 140 F, so 155 or 160 are perfectly safe.
Also, if you can find kosher turkey it will have already been salted, which has an effect similar to brining. My local Trader Joe’s sometimes has kosher turkey breast.
…A salt based dry brine is still a brine.