Should I Brine My Turkey Breast Before Roasting?
Brining a turkey breast before roasting is a technique that many home cooks swear by for delivering moist, flavorful meat. But is it necessary to brine a turkey breast before roasting or can you skip this extra step? There are pros and cons to brining that are worth considering when deciding if it’s right for your holiday meal.
What is Brining and How Does it Work?
Brining involves submerging meat in a saltwater solution, known as a brine, for a period of time before cooking. A basic brine is made by combining salt, sugar, and aromatic ingredients like spices, herbs, citrus, onions, garlic in water
The salt in a brine helps break down muscle proteins, allowing the turkey to retain more moisture during roasting The sugar balances out some of the saltiness And the aromatic ingredients infuse extra flavor.
When the turkey breast soaks in the brine, the salt deeply seasons the meat while the moisture is drawn into the cells. This results in a more seasoned, tender, and juicy finished product after roasting.
Benefits of Brining Turkey Breast
There are several advantages that brining can offer for turkey breast:
- More moist, juicy meat that doesn’t dry out while roasting
- Deeply seasoned flavor throughout the meat, not just the surface
- More tender texture from salt breaking down muscle fibers
- Infuses flavor from aromatic ingredients in the brine
- Allows seasoning to penetrate deep into the meat
Brining is especially helpful for leaner cuts like turkey breast which can easily dry out during roasting. The extra moisture retained helps keep it juicy.
How to Make a Simple Turkey Brine
A basic brine can be made with just a few ingredients:
- 1 gallon water
- 1/2 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- Herbs like rosemary, thyme, sage
- Spices like peppercorns, allspice, cloves
- Citrus like lemon, lime, orange
- Aromatics like onion, garlic, celery
Combine the water, salt, sugar and flavorings in a large container. Heat to dissolve the salt and sugar then cool completely before adding the turkey. Keep the turkey submerged in the brine for 12-24 hours in the refrigerator.
The measurements can be adjusted based on personal taste and size of the turkey breast. More salt makes a stronger brine while less makes a milder one.
Should You Brine Bone-In or Boneless Turkey Breast?
You can brine both bone-in and boneless turkey breast. Bone-in turkey takes a bit more time to brine since the salt takes longer to penetrate inside the bone. Plan for a full 24 hours for bone-in and 12-18 hours for boneless.
Both will benefit from brining. Choose based on what fits your meal plans best. Just account for longer brining if there is a bone.
Can You Brine a Frozen Turkey Breast?
It is best to fully thaw turkey before brining. Frozen turkey makes it hard for the brine to fully penetrate and season the meat.
For best results, thaw turkey breast 1-2 days in advance in the refrigerator before brining. Or thaw in cold water, changing the water every 30 minutes until thawed.
Pat the turkey dry before submerging in the brine once fully thawed.
Should You Rinse a Brined Turkey Breast?
After brining, rinse the turkey under cold water to remove excess surface salt. Pat dry with paper towels. Letting it air dry uncovered in the fridge for 8-12 hours helps form a dry outer “pellicle” that crisps the skin when roasted.
How to Roast a Brined Turkey Breast
A brined turkey breast can be roasted just like you would roast a non-brined turkey. Pat dry, rub with oil, and season the exterior. Roast at 400°F, basting occasionally, until the thickest part of breast reaches 165°F.
The brining helps keep the lean breast meat juicy, tender and flavorful. Slice and serve on its own or use for sandwiches, salads, casseroles and more.
Pros of Brining Turkey Breast
Here are some of the main benefits of taking the time to brine turkey breast:
- Juicier, more moist meat that won’t dry out
- Deeply seasons the meat, not just the surface
- More tender and less chewy texture
- Infuses extra flavor from aromatics in the brine
- Allows seasoning to penetrate deep into the meat
- Very simple process with big impact on flavor
Cons of Brining Turkey Breast
A few potential disadvantages of brining include:
- Requires 12-24 hours advance planning
- Uses a lot of salt, not ideal for low sodium diets
- Takes up space for a large container to brine
- An extra step compared to just seasoning and roasting
- Can make the texture almost too soft if brined too long
For many home cooks, the pros of brining outweigh the cons for cooking turkey breast. But the extra time commitment doesn’t work for all schedules.
Should You Brine Turkey Breast Before Roasting?
Whether you should take the time to brine turkey breast before roasting comes down to a few factors:
- If moist, well-seasoned meat is your priority, brining is recommended
- If you don’t mind extra effort and planning, brining is worthwhile
- If you like deep seasoned flavor, brining can achieve this
- If you often find turkey too dry, brining helps prevent that
- If cooking last minute, skipping the brine may be better
- If limiting salt, brining does add a lot of sodium
Weigh your preferences, goals, and time constraints. For many home cooks prepping holiday meals or cooking turkey breast regularly, brining is an easy way to help ensure ideal juicy results after roasting. But the time commitment doesn’t make sense for all schedules.
Tips for Brining Turkey Breast
Here are some extra pointers for successfully brining turkey breast:
- Use a container big enough to fully submerge turkey
- Chill brine completely before adding turkey
- Keep turkey submerged the entire time
- Brine in refrigerator to keep cool
- Allow 12-24 hours for brining time
- Rinse after brining and pat dry before roasting
- Avoid reusing raw turkey brine
The extra step of brining before roasting can deliver big rewards in terms of moist, seasoned flavor for turkey breast. For many home cooks, it’s a simple process that helps ensure delicious results. Take the time commitment into account and decide if brining works for your meal plan when cooking your next turkey breast.
What About the Flavored Brines?
First off, dont try to brine your turkey or chicken in cider (or any other acidic marinade, for that matter). Dont do it. Just dont. The acid in the cider will kick off the denaturization process in the meat, effectively “cooking” it without heat. The results? Ultra-dry meat, with a wrinkled, completely desiccated exterior, like this:
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More interesting were the results of the broth-soaked chicken. It seems like the ultimate solution, right? If brining forces bland water into your meat, why not replace that water with flavorful broth?
Unfortunately, physics is a fickle mistress who refuses to be reined in. When I tasted the broth-soaked chicken next to the plain brine-soaked chicken, there was barely a noticeable difference in flavor at all. The broth-soaked chicken still had the same hallmarks of a regular brined bird (juicy/wet texture, blander flavor). What the heck was going on?
There are two principles at work here. The first is that, while broth is a pure liquid to the naked eye, broth actually consists of water with a vast array of dissolved solids in it that contribute to its flavor. Most of these flavorful molecules are organic compounds that are relatively large in size—on a molecular scale, that is—while salt molecules are quite small. So, while salt can easily pass across the semipermeable membranes that make up the cells in animal tissue, larger molecules cannot.**
** Good thing, too; otherwise, youd be leaking proteins and minerals out of your body every time you took a bath.
Additionally, theres an effect called salting out, which occurs in water-based solutions containing both proteins and salt. Think of a cup of broth as a college dance party populated with cheerleaders (the water—lets call them the Pi Delta Pis), nerds (the proteins—well refer to them as the Lambda Lambda Lambdas), and jocks (the salt—obviously the Alpha Betas).***
*** I make no specifications as to the gender and sexual preferences of said classes of individuals, but for the sake of this analogy, let us assume that nerds and jocks are not attracted to each other and that cheerleaders attract both nerds and jocks.
Now, at a completely jock-free party, the nerds actually have a shot at the cheerleaders, and end up commingling with them, forming a homogeneous mix. Open up the gymnasium doors, and a few of those cheerleaders will leave the party, taking a few nerds along for the ride. Unfortunately, those gymnasium doors are locked shut, and the only folks strong enough to open them are the jocks. So what happens when you let some jocks into that party?
The cheerleaders, who were initially fine socializing with the nerds, will quickly and selectively flock to the jocks. The nerds end up finding each other, huddling into small groups, and twiddling their thumbs. When the jocks finally go to bust the gymnasium doors open at the end of the party, they leave hand in hand with the cheerleaders, leaving the nerds in the dust. In our sad tale, those Tri-Lambs never get their revenge.
The exact same thing is happening in a broth-based brine. Water molecules are attracted to salt ions and will selectively interact with them. The poor proteins, meanwhile, are left with only each other, and end up forming large aggregate groups, which makes it even harder for them to get into the meat. When the salt breaks down muscle fibers sufficiently to allow the uptake of water (the equivalent of our jocks breaking down those doors), plenty of water and salt gets into the meat, but very little protein does.****
The result? Unless youre using an extra-concentrated homemade stock, the amount of flavorful compounds that make it inside your chicken or turkey is very, very limited. Given the amount of stock youd need to use to submerge a turkey, this doesnt seem like a very wise move.
**** This phenomenon is used in biology to remove specific unwanted proteins from solutions. As more salt is added to a solution, proteins will form larger and larger aggregates, until they are eventually large enough to be visible to the naked eye and precipitate out of the solution. Those proteins can then be removed with centrifugation. By knowing the salt concentration that causes different proteins to precipitate, scientists can target specific proteins to be removed, while keeping the rest in solution. The excess salt can then be removed via dialysis (essentially microscopic straining).
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.
The perfect turkey brine
FAQ
Should I brine my turkey breast before roasting?
A: As long as you are able to brine for at least 15 minutes per pound of turkey, the turkey will be juicier than if you don’t brine at all.
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.
How long to brine wild turkey breast?
Instructions. Dissolve salt in water in a container large enough to hold the turkey. Lower the turkey into the water. Refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours.
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