Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast and Stuffing Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do you cook the stuffing before you stuff the turkey? ›

Mixing dry and wet ingredients produces an environment that bacteria may thrive in hours before cooking. Fully cook raw meat, poultry, or seafood ingredients before adding to stuffing. Combine the ingredients and place them in your bird immediately before cooking. Don't stuff whole poultry with cooked stuffing.

To achieve a perfectly golden, juicy turkey, let the bird spend time both covered and uncovered in the oven. We recommend covering your bird for most of the cooking time to prevent it from drying out; then, during the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, remove the cover so the skin crisps in the hot oven.

For the best results, our Test Kitchen recommends cooking a stuffed turkey at 325°F.

You can find fresh or frozen bone-in turkey breasts at the market. As opposed to a boneless turkey breast, you will be able to stuff this as you would a whole bird. You'll have plenty of meat for a large meal or enough for a week's worth of sandwiches.

Place the prepared stuffing in the whole turkey just before roasting. Stuffing the night before could cause food-borne illness. Stuff both the neck and body cavities of a completely thawed turkey, allowing ½ to ¾ cup of stuffing per pound. Don't pack stuffing too tightly, as it may cause uneven cooking.

Potatoes only take 4-6 minutes so I usually do them after the turkey is finished. But you CAN cook them right in with the turkey. Like this: put the potatoes in a steamer basket if it will fit in on top or beside the turkey. If not, make a tin foil boat to hold the potatoes and fit them in wherever you can.

"Often, consumers will inquire about adding water to the bottom of their roasting pans. We do not recommend adding water to the bottom of the pan. Cooking a turkey with steam is a moist heat-cook method and is acceptable, sure, but is not the preferred method for cooking your turkey."

If you let the turkey rest a bit, the juices reabsorb into the meat rather than running out of the bird and landing on the cutting board. Carve it to order. The longer you let it sit after you slice it, the drier it will be. If you need to slice it, cover it with foil or plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.

How Long to Cook a Stuffed Turkey. If you're determined to stuff the turkey, you'll want to leave it in the oven at 325°F for 20-25 minutes per pound.

Oven Temps: Best roasting is two stage process—425°F (218°C) for 1 hour, then down to 325°F (163°C) for however long it takes until the turkey is done. If you read a post telling you exactly “how long to cook a turkey,” hit the back button fast.

Is 350 too high for turkey? ›

Begin by roasting your turkey at 425°F for 40 to 45 minutes before lowering the temperature of the oven to 350°F for the rest of the cooking time. Like the other method, it's a good idea to brush the turkey every 15 to 20 minutes with butter or olive oil to help the surface brown and keep the meat moist.

Cooking the Thanksgiving meal doesn't have to be complicated or stressful. Take, for instance, our recipe for One-Pan Turkey Breast and Stuffing with parsley-pomegranate sauce. With this recipe, the turkey and stuffing cook together in the same roasting pan.

Using poultry shears, cut off and remove any back portion that may be attached to the turkey (there may not be any). Fill cavity under turkey breast and under flap of fat around neck with stuffing. Transfer remaining stuffing to a buttered 9- by 13-inch baking dish and place turkey on top.

Your turkey will cook more evenly and faster if you start it out at room temperature so remove the turkey from the refrigerator 1 hour before roasting. If you plan to stuff your turkey, wait until you're ready to put it in the oven before putting the stuffing in the turkey.

That temperature includes any potential stuffing deep in the turkey's cavity. At temperatures below 165°F you risk exposure to salmonella or E. coli, two very scary and gross bacteria.

For this reason, many experts recommend baking the stuffing outside the bird, where it can easily be cooked to 165°F and is less likely to harbor bacteria.

So it absolutely must be fully cooked before being consumed, whether the stuffing has meat in it or not; and. If you're wondering if you can cook the stuffing meat to help it along – yes you can but it won't help. It still gets soaked with raw turkey juices when it's in the oven so it needs to come to 74°C/165°F again.

Cook the frozen stuffing until it reaches 165 ºF. If you plan to prepare stuffing using raw meat, poultry, or shellfish, you should precook the raw ingredients before stuffing the item to reduce the risk of foodborne illness from bacteria that may be found in raw ingredients.