As Thanksgiving approaches, home cooks everywhere start planning their holiday menus. And for many, the centerpiece of Thanksgiving is a beautifully roasted turkey. But after years of dried out, overcooked birds, more and more folks are exploring ways to keep their turkey juicy and flavorful. This is where brining comes in.
Brining a turkey has become an extremely popular technique in recent years. But is it really worth the extra time and effort? Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of brining to find out if it’s right for your Thanksgiving turkey.
What is Brining and How Does it Work?
Brining is the process of soaking meat in a saltwater solution before cooking The salt in the brine seasons the meat while also helping it retain moisture.
There are a couple of ways brining improves moisture
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The salt in the brine dissolves some of the proteins in the meat, allowing the muscle fibers to loosen up and absorb more liquid.
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The brine adds extra water to the meat that stays in place even after cooking. Studies show brined meat can retain 30-40% more moisture than unbrined meat.
So brining essentially helps meat act like a sponge, sucking up extra liquid that keeps it juicy when cooked.
The Benefits of Brining a Turkey
There are a few key benefits that make brining worth considering:
More Juicy, Tender Meat
The biggest benefit of brining is juicier white and dark meat. The brine helps the turkey retain moisture, while the salt tenderizes the muscle fibers.
No more chewing through dry, stringy pieces at the Thanksgiving table!
Added Flavor
In addition to salt, brines can contain lots of other seasonings like herbs, spices, citrus, and more. All these flavors get absorbed into the meat during brining.
You can really amp up the flavor with ingredients like garlic, rosemary, brown sugar, and citrus zest.
Foolproof Cooking
Brining provides a little insurance against overcooking. Even if you accidentally leave the turkey in too long, the extra moisture helps prevent it from drying out.
This makes brining great for newbie turkey cooks nervous about roasting the holiday bird.
Works for Any Size Bird
Brining works magic on turkeys both small and large. Adjust the brine time as needed for the size of your turkey.
You can brine a turkey in as little as 4 hours all the way up to 2 days for an extra large bird.
Potential Downsides of Brining a Turkey
However, brining isn’t perfect. There are a few potential cons:
Time Commitment
You need to soak the turkey for hours before cooking, which requires planning ahead. Make sure to clear enough fridge space the day before cooking.
It also takes time to dissolve the salt, cool the brine, and rinse the turkey after brining.
Wet, Watery Texture
While brined turkey is juicy, some find the texture too wet from excess water absorption. The juice can even seem diluted rather than full of turkey flavor.
Extra Sodium
The salt in the brine seasons the turkey, but also increases the sodium content. For those limiting salt, this may be a concern.
Diluted Flavor
Since plain water makes up the bulk of most brines, it can dilute the turkey’s natural flavors. The seasoning absorb less efficiently than simply rubbing the turkey.
Big Container Needed
You need a container large enough to fully submerge the turkey in brine. This usually means a 5-gallon bucket or large cooler.
Tips for the Best Brined Turkey
If you want to brine your turkey, keep these tips in mind:
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Use a balanced brine with the right salt-to-water ratio. Too much salt can make the meat inedibly salty.
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Chill the brine before adding the turkey so it stays cold. Use ice packs to keep the temperature down.
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Rinse the turkey and pat it completely dry after brining. This helps get crispy skin.
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Cut back on additional salt during cooking since the turkey absorbs salt from the brine.
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Consider “dry brining” by heavily salting the turkey and letting it rest overnight instead of wet brining.
Should You Brine Your Turkey?
So should you take the time to brine your Thanksgiving turkey? Here are a few things to consider:
Brining pros: juicier meat, added flavor, foolproof cooking
Brining cons: time commitment, wet texture, excess sodium
Best for: cooks who want insurance against overcooking, smaller birds
May not be ideal for: experienced cooks, heritage breed turkeys, guests limiting sodium
While brining isn’t mandatory, it can be worth it for cooks wanting extra juicy, well seasoned meat without worrying about drying out the turkey. But cooks comfortable roasting turkey may find brining more trouble than it’s worth.
The best way to decide if brining is right for your Thanksgiving is to weight the benefits against the downsides. If you have the time and fridge space, it can be worth trying out. But don’t feel like you have to brine your turkey to get a delicious holiday centerpiece.
With the right technique, even an unbrined turkey can turn out moist and full of flavor. Focus on proper roasting temperature, basting, and resting. And consider alternative seasoning techniques like herb rubs, compound butters, or stuffing between the skin and breast.
With a little TLC in the kitchen, you can enjoy tender, juicy turkey on Thanksgiving with or without brining!
The Problems With Brining
There are two major problems with brining. First off, its a major pain in the butt. A cooler, a big bucket, or a couple of layers of heavy-duty garbage bags tied together with hopes that they won’t break are all common options for a vessel big enough to submerge a whole turkey. During the whole process, you must keep the turkey and the brine cold inside the vessel. For an extra-large bird, this could take a couple of days. This means that you either can’t use the main part of your fridge at the time of year when you want to, or you have to keep ice packs or rotating ice on hand to keep the bird cool.
“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 the extra 20%20savings%20in%20moisture%20loss%20doesn’t really come from turkey juice; it’s just tap water. Many folks who eat brined birds have that very complaint: Its juicy, but the juice is watery.
There have been a lot of suggestions for how to solve this problem, so I chose to put them all to the test side by side.
Brining Alternatives
By far the most common alternative is plain old salting. This time, osmosis really does work when you salt a turkey (or chicken) breast. The meat juices are first drawn out through osmosis. The salt dissolves in these juices to make a very concentrated brine. This brine can then break down muscle proteins. Because the muscle fibers are now loose, the juices can be reabsorbed, and this time they bring salt with them.
Through this process—osmosis, dissolving, reabsorbing—the salt will slowly work its way into the meat.
Some people have also asked the very simple question: why not brine in something more flavorful if the tap water is bland and boring??
Why not, indeed? I decided to find out.
Because there were so many ways to compare them, it wasn’t possible to try to roast turkey breasts at the same time. I roasted 24 chicken breasts instead, but in four groups of six. I then averaged the data from each group. There is a difference between chicken and turkey, but the two are similar enough that results for one should be similar to results for the other.
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Heres what I tried:
- Breast #1: plain (untreated)
- Breast #2: brined overnight in a 6% salt solution
- Breast #3: heavily salted overnight
- Breast #4: brined overnight in chicken broth with a 6% salt content.
- Breast #5: brined overnight in cider with a 6% salt content.
- Breast #6: soaked overnight in plain water
Breasts #1 and #6 were included as a control to ensure that the brine and salt solutions were behaving as expected, as well as a means of evaluating how closely the data would mirror that of the turkey breasts.
Heres what happened with breasts #1, #2, #3, and #6 (plain, brined, salted, and water-soaked).
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The chicken breasts that had been brined kept a lot more of their moisture than either the plain chicken breasts or the chicken breasts that had been soaked in water. Indeed, in this test, the water-soaked breasts actually ended up drier on average than the plain breasts. Take a look at the carnage:
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Dry as the Gobi Desert (on an admittedly very-moist-for-a-desert day).
On the other hand, take a look at the brined breast:
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As plump and juicy as a benevolent aunt in a Disney film. Tasting it, you definitely feel a case of wet-sponge syndrome. It looks like it’s juicy because water comes out of it when you chew it, but the texture is too loose and the taste is too bland.
Our next test was on the salted breast. It was still much more moist than the unsalted breast, but a few percentage points drier than the brined breast. Tasting it, youll find its undoubtedly juicier and better-seasoned, with a stronger chicken flavor. It has a smooth, dense, but tender texture like lightly cured meat, which is very different from both plain turkey and brined turkey.
Visually, you can see clear signs of this curing with its decidedly pink hue:
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With a small chicken breast, this pink, moist, cured section extends nearly to the center of the breast. The only place you’d see it on a turkey is around the edges, which are also the parts that tend to dry out and overcook the most.
Even though the brined breast tasted and felt a little more juicy, I’d choose the salted chicken over the brined any day.
Is brining a turkey worth it?
FAQ
Is it absolutely necessary to brine turkey?
Does brining really make a difference?
Do I rinse turkey after brining?
Does brining a turkey change the flavor?
Can You brine a Turkey?
After roasting countless turkeys over the past few decades, I can confidently say that giving your bird a dunk in a luxurious saltwater brine (also known as a wet brine) results in extra tender, impossibly juicy meat. Learn how to brine turkey with this simple step-by-step recipe, and you’ll never want to prep it any other way. What Is Brining?
Is brining a Turkey worth it?
The latter, most of all, is the source of some polemic: after all, while many extol the benefits of brining a turkey, it can seem like a lot of work. At the end of the day, many wonder if it’s really worth the time, effort, and fridge space brining requires. The idea behind the process of brining a turkey is relatively simple.
Can You brine a thawed Turkey?
Be sure to thaw your turkey beforehand, as it’s not safe to brine a fully frozen turkey. You can brine a partially thawed turkey, though, since the thawing process will continue while the turkey is in the brine. Wet brine the turkey in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours. Don’t go longer than that or the meat will get a spongy texture.
Why do turkeys need to be brined?
Brining, whether you’re using a traditional water-based brine or a dry brine, improves a turkey’s ability to retain moisture. Certain muscle proteins are naturally dissolved by the salt in the brine solution. Once these proteins are dissolved, muscle fibers lose some of their ability to contract when cooking.
How much salt do you need to brine a Turkey?
So long as your brine solution is around 6% salt by weight (that’s about one and a quarter cups of kosher salt per gallon) and your turkey is submerged, you’ll do just fine. Here are some approximate measures for the minimum amount of water and salt you’ll need for a range of turkey sizes: Should I Brine a Kosher, Enhanced, or Self-Basting Turkey?
Which brine is best for roasting a Turkey?
When it comes to roasting the tastiest turkey, Import says he chooses a wet brine. “A wet brine is more scientific, consistent, effective, and produces better texture.