should i soak my turkey before cooking

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Should You Soak Your Turkey Before Cooking?

As Thanksgiving approaches home cooks everywhere are gearing up to prepare the star of the meal – the turkey. With its large size and lean meat turkeys can easily end up dry and disappointing if not prepared properly. This leaves many wondering – should I soak or brine my turkey before cooking for juicier, more flavorful results?

What Is Brining?

Brining is the process of soaking raw meat in a saltwater solution before cooking. The saltwater brine is made by dissolving salt and sugar in water, along with aromatic ingredients like herbs, spices, and citrus.

When the raw turkey is submerged in the brine, the salt mixes with the meat’s proteins to loosen their bonds and allow them to absorb and retain more moisture. The sugar also caramelizes to improve browning and add sweetness.

After brining for 8-24 hours, the turkey is removed and patted dry before being roasted. The result is a seasoned, ultra-moist turkey that is forgiving if slightly overcooked.

Benefits of Brining Turkey

Here are some of the top benefits brining offers compared to cooking an unsoaked turkey:

  • Increased moisture retention for juicier meat

  • Allows for longer roasting with less drying

  • Evens out cooking between white and dark meat

  • Enhances flavor with seasonings and aromatics

  • Improves browning and caramelization

  • Makes meat more tender and plump

  • Adds salty seasoning throughout meat

  • Provides insurance against overcooking

Many novice and experienced cooks alike swear by brining for cooking the perfect Thanksgiving turkey. But it does come with a few drawbacks to consider.

Downsides of Brining

While brining turkey can vastly improve moisture and flavor, there are a few potential cons as well:

  • Requires planning ahead (1-2 days)
  • Needs a large brining container
  • Can result in overly salty flavor if overbrined
  • Adds extra time, work, and cleanup
  • Requires diluting broth for gravy

Due to the salt content, brining does limit how you can use any pan juices or drippings. The expelled brine must be diluted with broth or water to make well-balanced gravy.

Brining Tips

If you do choose to brine your turkey, keep these tips in mind:

  • Use 1 cup salt per 1 gallon water
  • Add brown sugar, herbs, spices, citrus
  • Chill brine before using
  • Rinse turkey after brining
  • Discard used brine
  • Pat turkey dry before roasting
  • Reduce added salt in other seasonings

Alternatives to Brining

If you’d rather avoid the work of brining, there are alternatives to help keep your turkey moist:

  • Dry brining – Rubbing skin with salt then air drying
  • Basting – Brushing with butter or drippings
  • Stuffing butter under skin
  • Cooking in a bag
  • Injecting broth into meat
  • Layering bacon over breast
  • Cooking to proper temperature

While brining does offer the most foolproof protection against dry turkey, it requires some extra time and effort. For cooks interested in quicker and easier approaches, dry brining, frequent basting, or buttering under the skin can also maximize moisture.

So Should You Brine Your Turkey?

Whether to brine your Thanksgiving turkey is a personal choice based on your time, priorities, and past cooking experiences. If dry turkey has been an issue, brining can provide a big improvement. The saltwater solution yields reliable, juicy meat that holds up to any overcooking.

However, if you’ve achieved tender, succulent results with simpler methods like basting, brining may be unnecessary. While highly recommended by many, it can alter flavor and doesn’t guarantee the “perfect” turkey.

Test out various techniques over time to find your family’s ideal preparation method. With the right combination of approaches, you’ll be sure to enjoy a mouthwateringly moist and delicious holiday turkey.

should i soak my turkey before cooking

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.

How Brining Works

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, lets do a quick recap on brining basics. The basic step is to soak meat overnight in a tub full of very salty water. The meat should be lean, like turkey, chicken, or pork chops. 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 show this, I cooked three turkey breasts that were all the same in an oven set to 300°F (150°C) until the insides were 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.

Before being roasted, both the bird soaked in brine and the bird soaked in water gained a lot of weight. However, the watered bird lost almost all of that weight as it cooked, while the brined bird kept a lot more. This corresponded to a juicier texture on eating. So whats going on here?.

should i soak my turkey before cooking

Some newspapers say it’s all because of osmosis, which is the movement of water across a membrane from a place with few solutes to a place with many. Water moves from the brining vessel, where there are few solutes, to the cells of the turkey, where there are many proteins, minerals, and other fun biological things dissolved in the water.

This theory is, in fact, inaccurate. If that were true, then soaking a turkey in clean, salt-free water would work better than soaking it in brine, but we already know that’s not the case. According to the osmosis theory, if you soak a turkey in a ridiculously concentrated brine (I tested the turkey in a 3% salt solution), it should dry out even more.

should i soak my turkey before cooking

However, I discovered that a highly concentrated 3% salt solution wasn’t any better at keeping the turkey moist than a more moderate 6% salt solution, which proves that the osmosis theory is completely false.

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. This makes the juices come out of the bird, just like when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste. 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, which lets them soak up more water. What’s more, they don’t contract as much when they cook, which keeps more of that water in the turkey while it cooks.

Sounds great, right? But theres a catch.

Do you rinse a brined turkey before cooking?

FAQ

Should I soak the turkey before roasting?

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.

Should I soak my turkey in water overnight?

Brining means making a salt water solution and submerging the turkey for about 24 hours before roasting. This spa treatment helps the turkey retain more moisture during roasting and prevents it from drying out. A brine also gives me a chance to season the turkey with herbs and spices, especially the skin!

How do you prepare a turkey before cooking?

The night before or the morning of cooking the turkey, you pat the pieces dry and refrigerate them, uncovered, in a single layer. This allows the skin to dry out a little, and that means the skin will become crispier when cooked. It’s a simple trick with a big payoff.

How do you clean a turkey before cooking it?

Ree Drummond likes to rinse the inside and outside of her turkey under a running faucet with cold water for several minutes. Then, she’ll fill up a big pot with cold water, submerge the rinsed turkey, and allow the bird to soak for about 15 minutes. This flushes away some of the saltiness.

Should you soak a Turkey in water or brine?

If it were true, then soaking a turkey in pure, unsalted water should be more effective than soaking it in a brine, and we’ve 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.

Should you soak a Turkey in a salt solution?

By soaking a turkey in a salt solution (yes, many brines also have sugar and spices, but without the salt you get nothing), the power of osmosis—where cells like to have similar water-salt balances—makes sure that the sodium in the brine gets infused throughout the turkey along with extra water. The cons are practical and, to some minds, culinary.

How do you cook a kosher turkey with salt?

And make sure you are using a natural turkey (one not already injected with a salt solution). Add a cup or two of kosher salt and then add a pitcher of hot water to dissolve the salt. Let the salted water cool and place your turkey in the container. Add cold water to cover the turkey. The ratio of salt to water isn’t terribly important.

How do you keep a Turkey from leaking?

Weight the turkey down with a plate if it is floating. Brine in the refrigerator. Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours. Rinse and pat dry. Take the turkey out of the brine and rinse under cold water. Pat dry with paper towels before roasting.

How do you brine a Turkey a day before roasting?

One day before roasting your turkey, bring 1 quart water, the salt, bay leaves, and spices to a simmer, stirring until salt has dissolved. Let cool for 5 minutes. Line the container with a large brining or oven-roasting bag to minimize cleanup. Line a 5-gallon container with a large brining or oven-roasting bag. Place the turkey in the bag.

Do you need kosher salt before cooking a Turkey?

Make sure to use Diamond Crystal kosher salt rather than another variety of kosher salt (or table salt)—since the size of salt crystals vary, the saltiness of a spoonful of salt varies too. Youngman says you’ll want to brine the turkey a few days in advance, before cooking.

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