Easy Turkey Brine (with One “Secret” Ingredient)

What I love about cooking (verses baking) is that I can pick and choose so easily and really customize a recipe or idea to our family’s style.

Back when I started teaching myself to cook – Pinterest, and Food Network taught me a ton – I never would have dreamed I could cook a Turkey by myself without someone telling me exactly what to do.

But here I am – killin’ it!

No, not the turkey, I probably won’t ever kill my own turkey. But I feel like I’m a pro at cooking one by now.

Over the last couple years, we have acquired about 5+ turkeys. The Daddy wins one almost every year on his bowling league around Thanksgiving. I think someone gave us one or two. And there was the time when I got a flat tire and was stuck in the Mel Trotter parking lot with Marvel, Bear, and Sunshine for 3 hours and they gave us a ton of groceries just to be blessing.

So whenever we host a holiday gathering at our house, I have an excuse to cook up a turkey!

It’s about a week long process if you do it “right” but I have cheated more than once and brined the turkey while it thawed and I’ve never had an issue. All of you ServSafe certified people out there might cringe at that idea, I’m sorry!

In fact, that’s what I did this last time for our family Christmas and it was so tender it was falling off the bone when The Daddy started carving it.

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Without further delay,

Here’s What’s In My Brine:

• Enough warm water to fully submerge the Turkey. I finally have a (teal!) 25 quart stock pot big enough for the job – I used to have to use a bucket and brine bags.
• 1-3 Onions – honestly, just whatever you feel like.
• About 2 Tbs of Himalayan pink salt – or whatever salt you’ve got
• Whole peppercorns – or ground pepper, whatever you’ve got on hand. I use this kind from Thrive Market.
• Seasoning and/or fresh herbs – Rosemary, Savory, Thyme, a Bay leaf, whatever kind of taste you’re looking for. You can even buy a brine kit with all the right seasonings already mixed of for you.

• My “Secret” Ingredient – Hard Apple Cider. I love the subtle sweet apple taste it brings and I swear it does something magical to the turkey!

Now mix it all up and soak that turkey for a day or two!

You can choose to simmer the brine for a bit and let it cool before you add your turkey if you’d like. I think it’s just a matter of preference. Let me tell you what I did and for food safety’s sake I’m not gonna come right out and say I recommend it. I brought my brine to a simmer and then I added my frozen turkey right into it. I waited for the temperature to come down while I played refrigerator tetris in order to fit the whole stock pot into the fridge.

After a good soak, the turkey comes out of the brine and goes straight into the roaster with about an inch of water or stock in the bottom. I always throw a little more seasoning over the top before the big show.

Next Step: Roast that bad boy!

Set your oven to 325F and cook it for about 20 minutes per pound. Always use a thermometer to check the temp is a minimum of 165F in the thickest part of the turkey. I don’t really trust those little plastic pop out timers.

My last trick is to take the roaster lid off at the end and give it another 10-15 minutes to really brown that skin on the outside.

That’s it! It really intimidated me at first, but now I feel like it’s a very easy process with a little time and planning.

Now, what to do with your leftovers? So many things! We always have a white turkey chili within a week so we can use up the leftovers.

If you want to use up every last bit, I highly recommend trying your hat at making Turkey Bone Broth <- Read about my experience here.

I’d love to read what you use in your brine or what intimidates you in your kitchen in the comments below.