Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants)

BRINED, BONE IN, HALF TURKEY BREAST (fully cooked SOUS VIDE)

“This fully cooked turkey option takes less than an hour to reheat in the oven. Marinated in a brine of salt, sugar, black pepper and garlic herb butter. “

A week out from Thanksgiving, I noticed this option at Trader Joe’s, a half breast of turkey that already fully cooked, and basically just needs re-heating. This as something that might appeal quite a few people. Those who don’t want to cook a whole bird from scratch, yet want to have turkey on the table which is almost home made. In this case they’ve done almost all the prep and cooking for us so all this needs is finishing up. This turkey breast needs about 45 minutes in the oven.

It’s a half breast of turkey which was marinated (brined) and was cooked “sous vide” – a cooking technique top chef’s love as it keeps meat juicy and tender (I am guessing they’ve hit the skin with a torch?). The quality here is top notch.

Here’s what TJ’s says:

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/brined-bone-in-half-turkey-breast-fully-cooked-060840

“Our Midwest supplier splits a full turkey breast, leaving the bone in, and marinating it in a brine of salt, sugar, black pepper, and garlic-herb butter. The Half Breast is then seared, and slowly cooked sous-vide. It’s not an exaggeration to say this approach produces a moist, juicy, and tender Half Turkey Breast with rich, slow-roasted flavor-and in just 40 minutes, versus the multiple hours it takes to cook a whole turkey. Find our Fully Cooked Brined Bone-In Half Turkey Breasts (about 2.5 pounds each on average) in our refrigerated deli section.”

UPDATE: We finally tried this this year, and is actually quite good! Maybe even fantastic. In fact everyone commented, multiple times, at how good this turkey was. You could not ask for a better cook on a breast of turkey (which are so often overcooked and dried out). The turkey here came out really moist and juicy with a perfect texture, and it had great flavor.

I got the smallest package I could find (which was 2.8 lbs) and it easily fed four people, along with our side dishes. How easy is it? Well basically all you are doing is re-heating this. The directions are 25 minutes at 375 covered with foil, then remove the foil and give it another 15 minutes (so 45 mins total) while basting with the pan juices. Let it rest for five minutes before slicing.

My only gripe with this was I love crispy skin and the skin didn’t get crispy even after the extra 15 minutes of baking uncovered. However nobody really cared as the turkey itself was so good. Next time I would just put it under the broiler at the end. You might try that (5 mins?)

Though not exactly cheap this was so good, so convenient, saving us so much time and effort, and getting so many multiple compliments, that we deemed it worth it.

If you are looking for a really easy way to get some delicious breast of turkey on the table, frankly you may want to consider this.

Most of the packages I looked at seemed to total around $32 to $40, running around 3 to 4 pounds each. Sure $10 a pound for turkey breast isn’t exactly cheap but then you are paying for the convenience as it will save a good deal of work and time.

We found the quality top notch. Plus say you like breast/white meat anyway, like we do. So there is almost no waste. All you need to do is maybe add a package or two of gravy, cranberries, and some frozen sides like mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, etc.

One can come up with an almost home made Thanksgiving pretty easy sourcing it all at Trader Joe’s, though things will add up

This turkey breast seems a bit of a popular item for TJ, in fact the next time I went there I found it was Sold Out for the day.

How To Heat This: The “preferred method” is in the oven. Instructions on the package. Will take about 45 minutes total. Personally I would not pick microwave as the way to cook it.