Brining a turkey breast before cooking is a great way to help ensure it stays moist, flavorful and tender. But is it necessary? Here’s a look at the pros and cons of brining a turkey breast to help you decide if it’s right for your Thanksgiving or holiday meal.
What is Brining?
Brining is the process of soaking meat in a saltwater solution (known as a brine) before cooking. The brine is typically made by dissolving salt and sugar in water, along with aromatics like peppers, herbs and spices.
The main benefit of brining is that it helps meat retain moisture during cooking. The salt in the solution travels into the meat, dissolving some proteins. This allows the meat to hold onto more moisture when exposed to heat, resulting in a juicier finished product.
Brining also enhances flavor. The salt infuses the meat, seasoning it from the inside out. Any aromatic ingredients in the brine also impart extra flavor.
Should You Brine a Turkey Breast?
So should you brine a turkey breast or not? Here are some pros and cons to consider:
Pros of Brining a Turkey Breast
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Moistness: Brining almost guarantees a moister, more tender turkey breast. The salt solution helps it retain juices.
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Flavor: Brining provides seasoning throughout the meat. Any aromatics come through as well.
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Forgiving: Even if you overcook the turkey slightly, brining provides a buffer against dryness.
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Easy: Making a basic brine takes 10-15 minutes. It requires very little hands-on effort.
Cons of Brining a Turkey Breast
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Time: You need to allow 12-24 hours for brining. This requires advance planning.
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Space: A container big enough to submerge the turkey is required. Plus room in the fridge.
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Wet skin: Brined turkey skin can be soft and wet. It may not get as crisp. Drying out the skin before roasting helps.
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Too salty? An improperly made brine can make the turkey overly salty. Use restraint with salt.
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Dilution of flavor: Some argue brining dulls the pure turkey flavor. The salt and aromatics take over.
Tips for Brining a Turkey Breast
If you opt to brine, here are some tips:
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Use 1/2 cup salt and 1/2 cup sugar per gallon of water. Too much salt makes it overly salty.
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Give it enough time. Allow 12-24 hours of brining for best moisture infusion.
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Keep it cold. The brine needs to stay chilled at 40°F or below. Monitor if using a cooler.
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Dry the skin. Pat the skin dry before roasting so it crisps up better. Air drying in the fridge helps too.
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Watch salt in the recipe. Consider unsalted butter if there’s a lot of sodium already.
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Add your favorite aromatics! Try peppercorns, citrus, herbs, spices, garlic or onions.
How to Brine a Turkey Breast
Here is a basic brine recipe and method for a 5-7 pound bone-in turkey breast:
Brine
- 1 gallon water
- 1/2 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 1 tbsp whole peppercorns (optional)
- Herb sprigs like rosemary or sage (optional)
Method
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Combine water, salt, sugar and any aromatics in a stockpot. Heat over medium just until salt and sugar dissolve. Remove from heat and cool completely.
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Place turkey breast in a container and cover completely with cooled brine. If needed, weight it down to keep submerged.
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Cover and refrigerate 12-24 hours.
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Remove turkey, discard brine and pat dry. Air dry in fridge up to 24 hours before roasting if desired.
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Roast turkey as desired, monitoring closely for doneness since brined meat cooks faster.
To Brine or Not To Brine?
While brining does require some extra planning, the benefits of a moist, flavorful turkey breast are hard to beat. If you have the time, give it a try and see if you notice a difference in the finished dish. A basic brine only takes a few ingredients and minutes to prepare.
If you opt to skip brining, no worries! There are plenty of other ways to help keep turkey breast juicy, like basting, cooking at a lower temperature or tenting with foil. With the right techniques, you can achieve a tender, delicious turkey breast without brining at all.
So decide what works best for your schedule, space and taste preferences. Either way, a properly cooked turkey breast can be the star of your holiday table!
The Problems With Brining
There are two major problems with brining. First off, its a major pain in the butt. Not only does it require that you have a vessel big enough to submerge an entire turkey (common options are a cooler, a big bucket, or a couple of layers of heavy-duty garbage bag, tied together with hopes and prayers against breakage), but it requires that you keep everything inside it—the turkey and the brine—cold for the entire process. For an extra-large bird, this can be a couple of days, meaning that youve either given up using the main compartment of your fridge at the time of year that you most want to use it, or that you keep a constant supply of ice packs or ice rotating to keep that bird cold.
“brining robs your bird of flavor”
Second, brining robs your bird of flavor. Think about it: Your turkey is absorbing water, and holding on to it. That means that that extra 30 to 40% savings in moisture loss doesnt really come in the form of turkey juices—its plain old tap water. Many folks who eat brined birds have that very complaint: Its juicy, but the juice is watery.
Ive seen a number of solutions (solutions, get it? haha) offered for this problem, so I decided to test them all out side by side.
How Brining Works
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, lets do a quick recap on brining basics. The basic process involves soaking meat (usually lean meats, like turkey, chicken, or pork chops) in a tub full of heavily salted water overnight. Most brines are in the range of 5 to 8% salt to water by weight. Over the course of the night, the meat absorbs some of that water. More importantly, that water stays put even after the meat is cooked. By brining meat, you can decrease the amount of total moisture loss by 30 to 40%.
To demonstrate, I cooked three identical turkey breasts in a 300°F (150°C) oven to an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C). One was brined, the other was soaked overnight in plain water, and the last was left alone. All three breasts came from non-kosher, non-enhanced birds (i.e., the birds were natural, having received no treatment after slaughter). I charted their weight straight from the package, after brining, and after cooking.
Both the bird soaked in brine and the bird soaked in water gained a significant amount of weight prior to roasting, but while the watered bird lost nearly all of that weight as it cooked, the brined bird retained a good deal more. This corresponded to a juicier texture on eating. So whats going on here?
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Some publications attribute it all to osmosis—the tendency for water to move across a membrane from an area of low solute concentration to an area of high solute concentration. In this case, water moves from the brining vessel (low solute concentration) to the inside of the turkeys cells (where there are lots of proteins, minerals, and other fun biological goodies dissolved in the water).
This theory is, in fact, inaccurate. If it were true, then soaking a turkey in pure, unsalted water should be more effective than soaking it in a brine, and weve already seen that that is not the case. Moreover, if you soak a turkey in a ridiculously concentrated brine (I tested turkey in a 35% salt solution), according to the osmosis theory, it should dry out even more.
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However, I found that despite turning the turkey inedibly salty, a highly concentrated 35% salt solution was just as effective at helping a turkey retain moisture as a more moderate 6% salt solution, indicating that the osmosis theory is entirely bunk.
To understand whats really happening, you have to look at the structure of turkey muscles. Muscles are made up of long, bundled fibers, each one housed in a tough protein sheath. As the turkey heats, the proteins that make up this sheath will contract. Just like when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, this causes juices to be forced out of the bird. Heat them to much above 150°F (66°C) or so, and you end up with dry, stringy meat.
Salt helps mitigate this shrinkage by dissolving some of the muscle proteins (mainly myosin). The muscle fibers loosen up, allowing them to absorb more moisture, and, more importantly, they dont contract as much when they cook, ensuring that more of that moisture stays in place as the turkey cooks.
Sounds great, right? But theres a catch.
How to Brine and Smoke a Turkey Breast
FAQ
Is it worth brining turkey breast?
Brining meat increases the amount of moisture in meat cells, producing juicy and tender pieces of meat every time. Brining accomplishes two tasks – increases the juiciness of the turkey and imparts additional flavor within the turkey meat (rather than it just sitting on the surface).
What is the downside of brining turkey?
Brining, or soaking meat in a salt-water solution, uses the power of osmosis to force the turkey or other meat to draw up water into itself. The theory is that the meat ends up juicier and moister that way. The problem is that it is a fake juiciness.
Is it better to wet or dry brine turkey breast?
A dry brine imparts a richer, more intense flavor directly into the meat because of the close contact between the dry-rub mixture and the turkey meat.Oct 17, 2024
Do I have to rinse turkey after brining?
12. Do You Rinse a Turkey After Brining? You should always rinse the turkey after wet or dry brining.Sep 16, 2022