Skip Brining Your Turkey

Turkey is the mascot of Thanksgiving. But growing up, Thanksgiving for my family never included turkey. Instead, we had pasta—like any proud Italian-American family…I know, I know.

And I’m telling you that, because to me, turkey isn’t all it’s gobbled up to be. So if I am going to have turkey, I want it to be darn good. And not a huge hassle!

The Science of Brining

Turkey is a lean meat. And without that fat to keep it juicy, it’s easy for a turkey to dry out. We’ve all had our share of dry turkey.

But that’s where brining comes in.

Brining is a well-known technique for giving you a well-seasoned juicy turkey! In the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty simple. You simply soak your turkey (or any lean meat for that matter) in salted water overnight.

The meat absorbs some of the water—increasing its body weight by up to 10%.

Since meat can lose up to 20% of its body weight while cooking, brining gives us some padding to work with (my trusty sources by the way: 1, 2, and 3).

But you can’t just soak a bird in water.

Both J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and America’s Test Kitchen have done similar experiments testing how a brine impacts the weight of meat before and after cooking. In both experiments, they had three treatments: meat soaked in water overnight, meat soaked in salty water overnight, and meat just out of the package.

The meat soaked in water picked up some water weight overnight, but the meat that was brined in salty water absorbed significantly more—America’s Test Kitchen saw almost 3x more weight gain after the salt bath. 🛀

And maybe, more importantly, the brined meat actually lost less weight overall after cooking: 14% according to America’s Test Kitchen. In comparison, the meat soaked only in water, and the control out of the package lost 19.7% and 18.4% of their weights, respectively.

Why? Salt changes the proteins in meat!

Given enough time, salt dissolves certain proteins and loosens muscle filaments, such that the meat contracts less when heat is applied. And that means less juiciness is squeezed out of the meat.

To interact with those proteins, salt travels into the meat via diffusion. Diffusion is the scientific process where something moves from an area of high concentration (salty water) to an area of low concentration (the meat). 🧂 ➡ 🦃

And not only does the salt affect how tender the meat will be, but it also seasons it. Because salt compounds are small enough, they can penetrate deep into the meat. You get seasoning throughout your turkey instead of just on the surface. Nifty, right?

So let’s all brine our Thanksgiving turkey! Actually maybe not.

3 Reasons Not To Brine

1. We want browning

When you brine your turkey, the meat isn’t the only thing to absorb water. The skin does too, making it challenging for it to crisp up. Because of the Maillard reaction, the browning that takes place on the surface is where we get most of our flavor. So juicy meat is great. But we also want flavor and texture from the crispy skin.

You can blot your brined turkey’s skin with a paper towel. Or you can brine your turkey a couple of days in advance, removing the turkey from the water on day 2, and then let it air dry in the fridge overnight, uncovered so the skin dries out. It works. But it’s a hassle…

2. Water-downed flavor

During its soak, the turkey absorbs water. And while the meat doesn’t dry out, the extra water makes the turkey taste less like turkey. Again, juicy meat is great. But flavorful meat is better!

My first thought was to add aromatics and spices to the water, making it more flavorful. But you barely get any extra flavor from doing that. Unlike smaller salt compounds, most other flavor molecules are larger. This means the flavor doesn’t travel deep into the meat. 😞

3. Space is a premium

I don’t know about you but my refrigerator is always full. But even more so leading up to Thanksgiving. So how the heck am I supposed to fit a 20-lb turkey submerged in 2-3 gallons of salty water?

How about using a cooler? Oh yeah, I’ll put the turkey in a cooler, fill it up with salty water, and add ice to it every few hours to make sure it stays cold. And then disinfect the cooler after the fact so it doesn’t have raw meat bacteria everywhere. That sounds like a swell idea. 🙄

But wait…

Doesn’t brining prevent our turkey from drying out and also season it thoroughly? Don’t we want those things? Yes, we do!

Here’s what to do instead of brining

Just use salt!

Salt is the magical ingredient that makes the proteins in the meat better at holding on to moisture. And salt is what can penetrate deep into the meat, seasoning it all the way through. You don’t need water for the same benefits!

So skip the water, save space in your fridge, and go for what some folks call a dry brine.

Here’s how: Start by rubbing salt into the cavity of your bird. Then rub salt underneath the skin of the breast and legs and in all the crevices you can find. You’ll probably want to use around 3-4 tablespoons of kosher salt here for a 12 to 14-lb bird. (Make sure to adjust your salt amount based on the type of salt you are using.)

But be careful. This part is important. You must give the salt enough time to work properly. If you salt your bird first and then cook it after a couple of hours, your meat will actually be drier. Why?

Salt initially draws moisture out of the chicken via osmosis (the diffusion of water). There is more water on the inside of the bird than the surface so osmosis tries to balance the water out. But after a little more time passes, magic happens.

The combination of the moisture and salt that is now on the surface of the meat acts as a super-concentrated brine. Salt and water on the surface will eventually travel back into the bird. This means you get a juicy, tender turkey that tastes like turkey and has a dry surface that is perfect for crispy, browned skin. 🙌

So make sure you salt your turkey 24-48 hours in advance. Less than that and you might end up with a dry turkey. More than that and you might start to get a cured turkey.

Oh, and you don’t have to add ice to your cooler in the middle of the night. 😃

Where I learned most of this: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt with articles like this, America’s Test Kitchen’s On The Science of Good Cooking, and Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking