This brined turkey recipe from Alton Brown has you utterly coated—beginning with a frozen 14-18-pound hen and ending with a golden brown, succulent, and flavorful turkey, plus a wealthy gravy.
Brown makes use of the wet-brine technique right here however frees you from the trouble of becoming a big stockpot in your fridge—tucking the hen right into a cooler saves valuable area. A bonus: You may thaw your turkey in the identical cooler earlier than introducing the brine. Like all recipes for roasted entire turkey, this one requires some planning, so schedule accordingly.
A couple of essential issues to bear in mind: First, drying the hen properly after brining is essential to crispy pores and skin. Brown additionally begins his turkey on excessive warmth (500°), which helps dry out the pores and skin and get it properly on its strategy to golden. After the preliminary blast of warmth, you’ll tent the breast with foil, flip down the oven, after which completely ignore it for the subsequent hour and a half. That’s proper: There’s no basting in the course of the cooking time, leaving your arms free to give attention to candy potatoes, apple pie, and all these different Thanksgiving classics.
The turkey will likely be a success (critically, test the evaluations), however when you and your visitors haven’t completed the entire hen by the evening’s finish, put it to work in these Thanksgiving turkey leftover recipes.
In case your thought of the perfect turkey brine recipe includes brown sugar and sprigs of contemporary rosemary, do this dry-brine turkey. In the event you’re tight on time, Chris Morocco has a genius recipe for a crispy, juicy turkey in components that may be prepared in underneath two hours.
