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15 lb turkey brine 5 recipe

Simple Turkey Brine

Jenni Cole
How to make a simple turkey brine with just salt, sugar, and water! No need to add extra seasonings unless you want to, you can truly make the BEST turkey brine with just 3 ingredients.
5 from 2 votes
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Prep Time 10 minutes
Additional Time 12 hours
Total Time 12 hours 10 minutes
Course turkey
Cuisine American
Servings 2 gallons of brine
Calories 3756 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 10-15 lb turkey
  • 2 gallons water
  • 2 cups fine sea salt
  • 2 ½ cups brown sugar

Instructions
 

  • Add 2 gallons of cold tap water to a clean 5-gallon food-grade bucket, alternatively, you can use a turkey brine bag.
  • Add the salt and brown sugar to the bucket and combine them with the water. If you want to add citrus or fresh herbs, add them during this step.
  • Place the prepared turkey in the brine, making sure you removed the neck and gizzards beforehand.
  • Brine the turkey for 12-14 hours.
  • Remove the turkey from the basic brine, rinse it off, and pat the turkey down with paper towels.
  • Proceed with your favorite turkey recipe, we love to add our popular turkey seasoning rub before baking or smoking. Enjoy!

Notes

Our recipe includes instructions for brining a 10-15 lb turkey. If you're making a larger one you "might" need to adjust the amount of brine you're using in the recipe (2 gallons of water as stated in the recipe might be fine, you won't know until you add it to the 5 gallon bucket). For each gallon of water, you need ¾-1 cup of salt and ¾ cup of brown sugar.
How much salt we add to the brine depends on how we're seasoning the turkey after brining it first. If we're doing a simple herb butter turkey we use the full 1 cup per gallon of salt. If we're using our seasoning rub, we cut back on the salt in the brine since the seasoning rub has a lot of salt already.
All you need to make a simple recipe for turkey brine is water, salt, and the turkey! We love to add sugar but it's optional too. Other optional additions are fresh herbs like 3-4 springs each of rosemary, thyme, and sage, or sliced oranges or lemons.
To make an apple cider turkey brine swap some of the water with apple cider (the juice not vinegar).

Nutrition

Calories: 3756kcalCarbohydrates: 270gProtein: 368gFat: 127gSaturated Fat: 39gPolyunsaturated Fat: 34gMonounsaturated Fat: 39gCholesterol: 1337mgSodium: 114833mgPotassium: 5528mgSugar: 267gVitamin A: 56IUCalcium: 732mgIron: 35mg
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