Juicy Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast: The Perfect Centerpiece for Any Holiday

This exquisite Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast, infused with aromatic garlic-herb compound butter, promises a succulent, flavorful experience and makes a truly beautiful centerpiece for any festive dinner table. Ideal for holidays and special occasions, this recipe delivers impressive results with less fuss than a whole bird.

When planning a holiday meal or an impressive dinner for a smaller gathering, preparing a whole turkey can often feel excessive. That’s where a perfectly roasted turkey breast shines. It’s an excellent choice for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or any occasion where you desire the magnificent taste of turkey without the commitment of a large bird. This recipe focuses on maximizing flavor and moisture, ensuring every bite is as delicious as it looks.

Beyond its suitability for intimate dinners, a roasted turkey breast is also a fantastic supplementary option when hosting a larger feast and requiring additional white meat. Furthermore, it’s a strategic way to guarantee you’ll have delicious leftovers. Imagine transforming the succulent meat into comforting Turkey Tetrazzini or a rich Creamy Turkey Wild Rice Soup!

This particular Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast recipe has become a cherished favorite within our family, lauded for its exceptional juiciness and robust flavor. Here, we’ll guide you through a comprehensive tutorial, covering everything from selecting the best turkey breast at the market to presenting it beautifully on your table.

Selecting the Perfect Turkey Breast: A Guide to Market Choices

For optimal roasting results, we highly recommend selecting a whole, bone-in, skin-on turkey breast. A size between 6 and 7 pounds is typically ideal for this recipe. As a general guideline for portioning, plan on approximately 1 pound per person. If you’re hoping for ample leftovers, which we always do, increase that to 1-1/2 pounds per person. For our household, a 6-7 pound turkey breast comfortably serves 4 to 5 guests with plenty to spare for future meals.

Turkey breast meat is notoriously lean and can be prone to drying out during cooking. This is precisely why buying a breast that is on the bone with the skin intact is crucial. The bone helps conduct heat more evenly, contributing to a more consistent cook, while the skin acts as a protective layer, basting the meat in its own juices and the compound butter, ensuring a wonderfully moist and juicy roast. You’ll find turkey breasts sold either as a whole breast (both halves attached by the bone) or as larger half breasts. Either option works perfectly for this recipe, provided they are bone-in and skin-on.

Understanding Turkey Labels: Natural, Kosher, or Injected?

When purchasing your turkey breast, it’s vital to pay close attention to the labeling. Different processing methods can significantly impact the bird’s natural salinity and moisture content. If your turkey breast is marked as “kosher,” “self-basting,” or “brine injected,” it means the meat has already been treated with salt or a saline solution. In such cases, you will need to carefully adjust the amount of salt added to your recipe to avoid an overly salty dish. Natural turkeys, on the other hand, have not been pre-salted or injected with any solutions, offering you complete control over the seasoning.

Crafting the Perfect Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast

Achieving a succulent and evenly cooked turkey breast begins even before it enters the oven. Similar to my preferred Roasted Chicken method, I always recommend allowing the turkey breast to sit out at room temperature (around 70 degrees F) for approximately one hour prior to roasting. This simple step helps the meat cook more uniformly, preventing the exterior from drying out while the interior catches up.

For roasting, a sturdy roasting pan fitted with a rack is essential. The rack elevates the turkey, promoting excellent air circulation around all sides, which encourages even browning and crisp skin. Adding a touch of liquid to the bottom of the pan—a mixture of dry white wine and chicken or turkey stock—serves multiple purposes. It helps to create a moist environment, further contributing to the juiciness of the meat, and it significantly reduces smoking by catching any flavorful drippings before they burn.

The Magic of Garlic-Herb Compound Butter

Compound butter is a true culinary secret weapon, especially for infusing flavor and moisture into leaner meats like chicken or turkey breast, which can sometimes veer towards the drier or blander side. For this cherished recipe, we harness the power of a classic combination of fresh herbs that evoke the quintessential aromas of a holiday feast: fragrant fresh sage, earthy rosemary, delicate thyme, and bright parsley.

To elevate this herb blend, we incorporate a subtle yet impactful punch of flavor with garlic powder, onion powder, and finely grated lemon zest. Through numerous iterations of this recipe over the years, we’ve found that raw garlic can sometimes be a bit too overpowering for the delicate balance of Thanksgiving flavors. Opting for garlic powder provides a more mellow, integrated garlic note. However, if you possess a strong affinity for garlic and desire a more pronounced flavor, feel free to substitute 1-2 large fresh garlic cloves for the powder. When using fresh garlic, ensure it’s either pressed through a garlic press or finely grated on a microplane to ensure even distribution and prevent large, bitter pieces.

Mastering the Art of Butter Application Under the Skin

Properly applying the compound butter is paramount to achieving a truly juicy and flavorful turkey breast. Begin by positioning the turkey breast with the top facing you. Very gently, slide your fingers between the skin and the meat, carefully loosening the skin to create a generous pocket. The goal here is to create space for the butter without detaching the skin entirely. It is critically important not to tear the skin during this process, as any tears will cause the precious herb butter to melt out into the pan prematurely, rather than basting the meat from underneath. Strive to keep the skin attached along the sides and bottom of the breast to ensure the butter remains contained and melts slowly into the meat.

Once the pocket is formed, use a spoon to carefully distribute about two-thirds of the prepared compound butter evenly between the two breast halves, directly under the loosened skin. After placing the butter, use your hands to gently rub the outside of the skin. This action helps to further distribute the butter evenly across the breast meat from underneath, ensuring every part of the turkey benefits from the flavorful infusion.

Seasoning and Roasting to Perfection

Before the turkey breast makes its grand entrance into the oven, ensure the exterior skin is thoroughly dry. Use paper towels to pat it down meticulously; a dry surface is key for the remaining herb butter to adhere properly and for the skin to crisp beautifully. Once dry, rub the last third of the compound butter generously all over the skin. Finish with a liberal seasoning of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, and your turkey is now ready for its transformation.

Our roasting process begins with a powerful 30-minute blast in a 425 degrees F oven. This initial high heat is critical for several reasons: it jump-starts the cooking process, helps to render some of the fat under the skin, and, most importantly, encourages the development of that coveted, beautifully golden-brown and crispy skin that is the hallmark of a perfectly roasted turkey.

After the initial high-heat period, reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. At this point, I like to pour a little white wine directly over the turkey breast, adding another layer of flavor and contributing to the pan drippings. The beauty of this method is that the turkey breast will only require occasional basting – perhaps a couple of times throughout the remainder of the roasting period – to achieve succulent, juicy perfection. This lower temperature ensures the interior cooks gently and evenly without drying out the exterior.

Ensuring Doneness and the Importance of Resting

Knowing precisely when your turkey breast is cooked to perfection is crucial for both safety and optimal texture. To accurately gauge its temperature, insert an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of the meat, being careful to avoid touching the bone. The bone conducts heat differently and can give a false reading. When fully cooked, the thermometer should register 160 degrees F. I always recommend probing in a couple of different spots to confirm an even temperature throughout the breast.

The total roasting time after the initial 30-minute high-heat burst can vary significantly, ranging anywhere from 60 minutes to over 90 minutes. This variability depends on several factors, including the precise size and initial temperature of your turkey breast, as well as the calibration and efficiency of your oven. Always trust your thermometer over estimated cooking times.

Once the turkey breast reaches 160 degrees F, remove it from the oven and transfer it to a carving board. This next step is perhaps the most critical for a juicy result: let the turkey rest undisturbed for about 15 to 20 minutes. During this resting period, a phenomenon known as “carryover cooking” occurs, where the internal temperature of the meat will continue to rise to the FDA’s recommended safe internal temperature for poultry, which is 165 degrees F. More importantly, resting allows the meat fibers to relax and reabsorb their juices, ensuring that when you carve, those precious liquids remain within the meat, resulting in an incomparably moist and tender turkey.

Dinner is Served! Expert Plating and Delicious Side Pairings

Once rested, your magnificent herb-roasted turkey breast is ready for carving. Using a sharp carving knife, carefully detach each breast half from the central breastbone and the ribcage. After separating the breast meat, slice it against the grain into uniform, thin slices. Slicing against the grain is essential for tenderness, as it shortens the muscle fibers, making each bite easier and more pleasant to chew.

For a beautiful presentation, I like to arrange the fanned, sliced breast halves elegantly onto a large serving platter and garnish generously with fresh herbs. This adds a vibrant touch of color and reinforces the delicious herbal aromas. If you wish to enhance the turkey with a savory sauce, don’t let those flavorful pan drippings go to waste! Deglaze the roasting pan with about 1/2 cup of chicken or turkey stock, gently scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Strain the pan juices through a fine-mesh sieve, season them to taste with a pinch of salt and pepper, and then spoon this rich, homemade sauce over the turkey slices just before serving. It’s a simple step that adds incredible depth of flavor.

Delightful Side Dishes to Complement Your Turkey Breast

No holiday meal is complete without an array of delectable side dishes. Here are some of our favorite pairings that beautifully complement the rich flavors of this Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast:

• Haricots Verts with Lemon-Herb Brown Butter Sauce: Crisp green beans with a nutty, zesty dressing.
• Cranberry Pecan Stuffing: A sweet and savory stuffing with a delightful crunch.
• Traditional Bread Stuffing with Herbs: The classic, comforting staple for any turkey dinner.
• Sausage and Chestnut Stuffing: A hearty and flavorful stuffing option.
• Brown Butter Whipped Sweet Potatoes: Creamy, sweet, and incredibly indulgent.
• Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes: Extra rich and smooth mashed potatoes for a luxurious feel.
• Brandied Cherry Cranberry Sauce: A sophisticated twist on traditional cranberry sauce.
• Parmesan Duchess Potatoes: Elegant, piped potato swirls with a cheesy flavor.

Recipe: Herb Roasted Turkey Breast

This detailed recipe provides all the steps to create a show-stopping herb-roasted turkey breast, perfect for any special occasion or a smaller holiday gathering. It focuses on infusing flavor and retaining moisture for a truly succulent result.

We hope this comprehensive guide inspires you to create a truly memorable Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast for your next special meal. Its rich flavors and tender texture are sure to impress your guests and satisfy your family. Enjoy the process and the delicious results!

This post was originally published on Striped Spatula on November 25, 2019, and was updated in 2020 with new photos and expanded content to provide even more helpful tips and details.