To brine or not to brine your turkey? That’s my question for you this holiday season. By this time in the season hopefully you will have purchased your turkey, or at least are thinking about it. How are you planning on cooking it? Have you ever thought of brining your turkey or have you even heard of it?
Brining is the act of putting your thawed turkey in water, seasonings, salt, etc. for a period of about 24 hours. The longer the better. The outcome is a moist, tender, flavorful turkey. Say good-bye to dried out Turkey meat.
Last year I decided to “leap” and try this daring, more interesting approach to baking off my turkey. So I sought out information from my trusted cooking website that I come back to all the time. I found this recipe called “Out of this world Turkey Brine” from All Recipes.com. Believe me, I was a bit skeptic. Afterall, the recipe is asking you to thaw the turkey, put a bunch of weird ingredients into a cooler and let your turkey hang out in the brine bath for days. Sounds weird doesn’t it? Well I was up to the challenge and I’m up for it this year as well.
These are the basic steps that I followed from the recipe. Definitely read over the recipe a few times for greater success. By no means am I a Turkey Brining Expert!
Out Of This World Turkey Brine
Ingredients
- 2 gallons water
- 1 1/2 cups canning salt
- 3 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
- 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
Directions
- In a large bucket or container large enough to hold your turkey, mix together the water, salt, garlic, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar. Store in a refrigerator, and soak turkey for 2 days before smoking or roasting.
Well that’s all there is to it. It really was quite simple. Trust me. I’m not the type of person that likes a lot of steps and I thought it was super easy. Our turkey last year was flavored, moist, and simply delicious! Brining my holiday turkey is the way to go for this girl!
What’s your approach when it comes to success with baking your Turkey? I would love to hear about it.