Brined Whole Turkey

More About This Recipe

• This recipe is for those of you who could take or leave turkey. (No, it’s not blasphemy to be on the fence about this bird.) The enormous size of a turkey makes it a considerable challenge to cook correctly. To get the whole bird done, some parts, like the breast, end up getting cooked too long resulting in dry meat, which is precisely what so many people find off-putting about turkey. Luckily, there’s a way around this, and it’s called brining. Brining is a way to prepare your meat, so it turns out succulent and tender. It can be done two different ways with a wet brine, as this recipe calls for, or with a dry brine. When you wet brine a turkey, it means you immerse it in a salty liquid, a brine, for an extended period — in this case, 8 to 12 hours. The salty brine breaks down the tissue of the meat, which leads to better texture and flavor. So this Thanksgiving, roasting a brined turkey is the way to convert even the skeptics into turkey lovers! Just remember that if you start from frozen, you’ll need a few days to both thaw and brine your turkey. Refer to our handy poultry thawing chart to find out how much time your turkey will need to defrost. Then, get step-by-step instructions on how to brine a turkey and how to cook a turkey. And if you want to try another approach, we recommend our Lemon, Garlic and Herb Dry-Brined Turkey recipe, or skip the brining entirely, and explore a few more of our turkey recipes.