I Brined My Turkey in This Surprising Ingredient and Never Want to Make It Any Other Way

Pickles are having a moment. The evidence is on the Allrecipes website, where you can find hundreds of pickle recipes and articles on everything from Disney World’s polarizing pickle milkshakes to Jimmy John’s new Picklewich sandwich. But are pickles—or more specifically the brine that makes them so tangy and delicious—the secret to a beautiful juicy Thanksgiving turkey?

To find out, I brined a turkey in pickle juice for about 24 hours using the recipe (see below) from Bubbies Fine Foods, which makes a variety of fermented and pickled products, and the result was the most beautiful, golden-skinned bird that’s ever come out of my oven. The turkey’s interior was also super tender and some parts even had a slightly pickley flavor.

Why Brine Poultry in Pickle Juice

Since I usually wet brine my Thanksgiving turkey in a salt solution, pickle juice seemed like a no-brainer swap. Pickling liquid contains salt and (often) vinegar, which are both tenderizers that help break down the connective tissues and muscle fibers in meats, including poultry such as chicken and turkey. Using pickle juice as a brine for turkey helps the bird retain moisture, resulting in a moist interior. 

If you’re worried about your turkey picking up too much pickle flavor from the brine, this recipe might not be for you. While the pickle juice did infuse my bird with a bright and gently tangy flavor, it was very subtle and my husband and I could only taste it in some parts of the turkey, particularly the dark meat and a breast where I tucked pickle slices under the skin. Otherwise, most of the turkey had a neutral salt-seasoned flavor. It also had notes of herbaceousness and citrus from the ingredients in the brine (peppercorns and mustard and celery seeds) and what I stuffed in the cavity (lemons, onions, and a bouquet of dill, thyme, and rosemary)—but nothing was overly pickley. 

How to Make A Pickle Juice Brined Turkey, According to Bubbies 

Customize this recipe to suit your flavor preferences and whatever you have in your pantry. 

Ingredients

• 15-pound turkey
• 6 cups pickle brine (such as brine from approximately 3 jars of Bubbies pickles—use either kosher dill or bread and butter chips)
• 6 cups water (or more to cover turkey)
• 1 cup salt
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 1 tablespoon peppercorns
• 2 teaspoon celery seeds
• 1 onion, quartered
• 2 lemons, quartered
• 10 cloves of garlic
• 1 bunch of fresh dill
• ½ cup butter, melted
• Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Add turkey to a large pot. Add pickle brine, water (enough to cover the turkey completely; this varies depending on the size of the pot and turkey), salt, brown sugar, mustard seeds, peppercorns and celery seeds.
2. It’s important to make sure the turkey is fully submerged in the brine, so if you need to, set something heavy on top to keep it submerged. Cover and refrigerate for 12-24 hours.
3. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F and prepare a roasting pan.
4. Remove turkey from brine and rinse thoroughly. Pat dry with a paper towel (the drier, the crispier the skin). Stuff the cavity with quartered onion, lemons, garlic and dill. Use your fingers or back of a wooden spoon to loosen and lift the skin on the breast. Tuck the wings under the bird and use twine to tie the legs together.
5. Brush the entire turkey liberally with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes at 500 degrees F , then cover the turkey with aluminum foil (to prevent skin from burning) and reduce heat to 350 degrees F.
6. Roast until the temperature reaches 165 degrees in the thickest part of the turkey breast. (Note: turkey size and oven temperatures vary, so please consider using a wired meat thermometer; insert into the thickest part of the thigh, not touching the bone, and set the goal temp to 165 degrees).
7. Remove from the oven and let rest for 30 minutes. Optional: Brush with more melted butter before serving.

Tips and Variations for Making A Pickle-Brined Turkey

• Mix up the pickle brine. You can use both brine from cucumbers preserved in vinegar and cucumbers fermented in water and salt (the latter are known for their probiotic benefits and are often sold in the refrigerated section of grocery stores). I used a combination of both brine from fermented kosher dill pickles and vinegar-preserved bread and butter pickles. You can also get creative and incorporate other types of brine (think: jalapeno or pepperoncini juice). 
• Opt for a jug of store-bought brine. Saving enough pickle juice to brine a turkey without wasting pickles is challenging. Instead of buying jars of pickles and using their brine, you can also purchase a 64-ounce jug of Mt. Olive Pickle Juice, which is available at select Walmarts and via Amazon.
• Submerge your bird: Ensuring your turkey is completely covered in brine is the key to thoroughly tenderizing your turkey inside and out. To keep mine submerged, I put a plastic bag filled with some canned goods on top of it.
• Don’t skip the butter: Brushing the turkey’s skin with melted butter helps it brown to golden perfection. It also helped me to start the bird at 500 degrees F before lowering the heat to 350 degrees F. I was worried the high heat would burn my turkey—but after 30 minutes in the oven, it had a gorgeous golden exterior.  
• Get inventive: I tucked some spicy pickle chips under the skin of one breast, which enriched one side of the turkey with some extra pickle flavor (a recommendation from Bubbies). That portion was fun to slice for sandwiches. But you can definitely go all out and tuck pickle slices under the skin of the entire turkey and garnish it with more pickles; or fill the cavity with extra dill. After all, we are in our pickle era.