Turkey dinner without the hassle of cooking a full turkey! This Roast Turkey Breast with Herbed Butter produces a moist, full of flavor turkey breast – perfect for a smaller family.
Bring on the holiday meals! While this Roast Turkey Breast is easy enough for a Sunday dinner, it’s perfect for a holiday table, as well! Serve it with some perfect mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and sweet potato casserole and everyone will walk away full!
The situation: it’s the week before Thanksgiving. You had planned to spend the holiday with your extended family, but plans fell through, and now you are at home, just you and your small family. You’ve never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before, but it’s not like you can skip out just because you’ve never done it before!! So, what do you do?
You don’t want to cook a full turkey. Your family is much too small for that. And let’s face it – a full turkey is kind of intimidating! But a turkey breast is totally doable!
If you’ve never cooked a turkey breast before, you will find out it is so super simple. So simple, in fact, you don’t really need to wait just for a holiday to make one! It takes only minutes to prepare, then into the oven it goes to roast for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
This frees up your time to make the other goodies, like stuffing and bread, or it gives you the extra time to spend doing things with your family!
As much as I love turkey for Thanksgiving, this Roast Turkey Breast recipe needs to be made year round. In fact, this has become a go to recipe for Sunday dinner. Turkey breasts are easy enough to find year round, now, there’s no reason not to have it more often!
Ingredients
Turkey Breast: When you are looking for a turkey breast, you’ll most likely come across 2 different versions. The first is a boneless turkey breast, which usually consists of a single turkey breast with the bone removed. The other version – the kind I’m using here, is a bone in turkey breast, which has 2 breast halves that are attached by the breast bone. The bone-in version will usually be between 6-10 pounds.
Butter: I use unsalted, but salted butter would be great here, too!
Parsley, Sage and Thyme: These are your typical herbs, and fresh is definitely best here.
Apple & Onion: These are stuffed inside the breast cavity for flavor. They are discarded after, but bring tons of flavor.
Flour: The flour is just to coat the oven bag. If you choose not to use an oven bag, you won’t need the flour.
Chicken Stock or Broth: You’ll pour this over your turkey in the oven bag to keep the turkey nice and moist.
How to Make Roast Turkey Breast
MAKE THE BUTTER: Combine the softened butter with the fresh, chopped herbs.
PREP THE TURKEY: Rinse and dry the turkey, then take your hands and gently pull the skin up from the breast, creating a pocket.
BUTTER THE TURKEY: Take half of the butter for each breast side and spread it between the breast meat and the skin. I think this is easiest to do by pressing and squishing from the outside once the butter is under the skin.
STUFF THE TURKEY: Place the quartered onion and apple in the cavity under the breast bone.
PREP THE BAG: Shake the flour into the oven bag. Place the bag in a baking dish.
ADD THE TURKEY: Place the turkey in the bag, then pour the chicken broth over the top.
BAKE: Tuck the edges of the bag under the breast and cut a few slits in the top of the bag. Bake until the turkey breast is 165ºF, about 15-20 minutes per pound.
Make Ahead and Storage
MAKE AHEAD: If desired, you can cook your turkey a day or two in advance and warm it up before serving, but one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is how it smells as the turkey bakes! But this does free up time and oven space, so it may work better for you.
FREEZE: Turkey leftovers can be frozen to use later. Remove the turkey from any bones, place in an airtight container (I like to use ziplock bags) and freeze for up to 3 months.
STORE: Store any leftovers covered in the refrigerator.
Tips and Tricks
If you have a different mixture of fresh herbs that you like, feel free to use them. These are pretty traditional turkey herbs.
This recipe does use a turkey bag, which I think is key to make a moist turkey breast. You should be able to find them at any grocery store pretty easily, but if not, you can also order them online.
Want to use a boneless turkey breast instead of a bone in turkey breast? You’ll still cook the breast for about 15-20 minutes per pound. Most boneless turkey breasts are wrapped in a netted casing, so you’ll want to rub the herbed butter on the outside. You won’t necessarily need the oven bag for the boneless breast, as well.
Save the juices from the pan to make homemade gravy.
Got Leftovers? Make These Recipes
Turkey Noodle Soup
Turkey Salad Sandwich with Honey Mustard
White Turkey Chili
Turkey Casserole with Butternut Squash
Rosemary Turkey Squares
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Roast Turkey Breast with Herbed Butter
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 mins
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Main Course
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Description
Turkey dinner without the hassle of cooking a full turkey! This Roast Turkey Breast with Herbed Butter produces a moist, full of flavor turkey breast – perfect for a smaller family.
Ingredients
- 1 (6-10 lb) bone-in turkey breast
- 4 tablespoons butter, softened
- 2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
- 1 apple, quartered
- 1 onion, quartered
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup chicken broth or stock
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
- Rinse and dry the turkey breast.
- In a small bowl, combine the butter, parsley, sage, and thyme. Set aside.
- Gently pull the skin up from the breast of the turkey, creating a pocket. Take half of the butter and press the butter in between the skin and the breast meat on one side, then use the remaining butter on the opposite side. I think it’s easiest to put the butter under the skin, then evenly press it out on the outside of the skin.
- Tuck the apple and onion into the small cavity under the bone.
- Place the flour in an oven safe turkey bag. Shake to distribute it evenly.
- Place the turkey bread in the bag and set it in a baking dish that is at least 2 inches deep. Make sure the apples and onions are on the bottom.
- Pour the chicken broth over the turkey, then tuck the edges of the bag under the breast and cut a few slits in the top of the bag.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a thermometer inserted in the areas reads 165ºF., about 15-20 minutes per pound of turkey breast.
- Remove the turkey from the oven and let it sit for at least 10 minutes before slicing.
Recipe Notes:
SUBSTITUTIONS: If you have a different mixture of fresh herbs that you like, feel free to use them. These are pretty traditional turkey herbs.
MAKE AHEAD: If desired, you can cook your turkey a day or two in advance and warm it up before serving, but one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is how it smells as the turkey bakes! But this does free up time and oven space, so it may work better for you.
FREEZE: Turkey leftovers can be frozen to use later. Remove the turkey from any bones, place in an airtight container (I like to use ziplock bags) and freeze for up to 3 months.
STORE: Store any leftovers covered in the refrigerator.
Nutrition information provided as an estimate only. Various brands and products can change the counts. Any nutritional information should be used as a general guide. Nutrition information is based on 4 oz of cooked meat per person.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 4 oz cooked meat
- Calories: 161
- Sugar: 1 g
- Sodium: 476 mg
- Fat: 10 g
- Saturated Fat: 4 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 2 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 2 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 25 g
- Cholesterol: 60 mg
Keywords: roast turkey breast, turkey breast, oven roasted turkey breast
Andy C says
You don’t say what to do with the chicken stock
Deborah says
Sorry about that! I have updated the recipe.
Deb says
I made this turkey recipe for our Thanksgiving dinner last week…in fact, I made two-a test turkey breast for leftovers and another one for dinner. I was so sick of the inconsistency and stress that whole stuffed turkeys cause me every year. So, my friends said to use a bag and I found your recipe and my Thanksgiving experience has been forever changed! Perfectly moist, delicious and great the next day, too. So easy to clean up. Thank you so much for a great recipe!!!
Deborah says
@Deb, I’m so glad you liked the recipe and that it’s taken some of the stress out of your Thanksgiving!