Buttermilk Brined Turkey

Buttermilk Brined Turkey is moist, tender and flavorful. Soaking your turkey in our salty buttermilk brine with spices creates a tender, flavorful bird at the table.

Why wet brine? Turkey is a lean meat with mild flavor making it a great protein to pair with potatoes, gravy and lots of flavorful salads and sides at the holidays. Wet brines help to bring added flavor and moisture to this otherwise basic meat.

How can I cook a better Turkey?

• Basting a turkey during roasting or baking keeps the skin moist and helps prevent drying out.
• Tenting your bird with foil during cooking also captures moisture that tend to cook out in the long hours a turkey is in your oven.
• You can inject the bird to really drive moisture and flavor deep into the meat.
• Dry brines will improve the overall meat flavor and create a crisp skin.
• A proper wet brine tenderizes the bird and adds flavor, while also creating a crisp skin.

What does Buttermilk do in a brine?

Buttermilk tenderizes meats. Its lactic acid and enzymes denature protein strands and break down collagen, making the meat more tender and allowing moisture to penetrate into the tissue. When it is heated, the protein strands contract, trapping the moisture inside, making it juicer.

Chef Martin Bayer

Buttermilk brined turkey meat is flavorful, moist and tender. Your guests will love it.

Here is our other excellent non dairy wet brine with complete instructions for roasting a turkey.

How do you Wet Brine a Turkey?

• The turkey has to be defrosted enough to remove the neck and giblets before brining. This will take several days for a large bird.
• The turkey needs to soak in brine 12 to 24 hours for the brine to do its work on the meat. We soaked our brined turkey for 36 hours to meet our schedule. It was delicious.
• A brining turkey takes some room in your fridge, but you remove it the day of cooking so you have more room in the fridge for sides, desserts and condiments then.

To buttermilk brine a turkey breast rather than the whole bird, cut this recipe by half and soak the breast 8 to 12 hours.

Can you stuff a Buttermilk Brined Turkey?

You can stuff your turkey as you normally would. We recommend lightly stuffing the bird with aromatics like onion, lemon and fresh herbs. We used sprigs of fresh oregano and rosemary.

Light herbal stuffings allow the bird to bake quickly and the baking heat can penetrate internally. This ensures the bird is baked clear through to food safe temperatures.

Do you rinse off Buttermilk Brine?

Once your turkey has finished brining pat it dry with a paper towel but do not rinse off the brine. This will help with flavor and moisture retention.

How long do you cook a Stuffed Turkey?

If you are stuffing the turkey with a bread stuffing, the baking time will increase quite a bit. Usually 15 minutes per pound at 350 degrees F. Be sure to bake your turkey to the proper required internal heat of 165 degrees F into the breast and 175 degrees F into the thigh for a food safe bird.

With heavy bread stuffings this is extremely important. The heat cannot easily get into the bird during cooking so it cooks more from the outside in.

Recipe Adapted From Williams and Sonoma