Smoked Boneless Turkey Breast
April 28, 2014 | Updated February 15, 2021
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Anyone who’s ever cooked any sort of turkey, wild or domesticated, knows that the breast meat can get dry in a hurry. Smoked boneless turkey breast chief among them.
That’s because a boneless turkey breast doesn’t have the breastbone to protect it from drying out. Fear not, however, I’ll show you how to go about it.
The end goal is that tender, juicy turkey breast, smoky, maybe a touch sweet, but you don’t want it dry as the Sahara, or with the thinner, tail end of the breast turned into jerky.
I do this with two techniques: First, slice off the triangular tail end, and use that for another recipe, like maybe turkey parmesan, and just smoke the thick part. Here’s how you cut it:
The second technique is to brine or salt cure the meat: That’s the secret to fantastic smoked boneless turkey breast.
And while you can get away with not brining a store-bought turkey, smoking a wild turkey breast requires a salt brine. Period. If you are not familiar with what brining does, it uses the power of salt and osmosis to slightly denature the proteins in the meat, swelling them with salty moisture and trapping more liquid in the meat than it would otherwise be able to contain.
So when you cook it, and you get the inevitable moisture loss that heat causes, there was already so much moisture in the brined meat to begin with that it remains juicy.
I use what is called an equalization cure for my “brine,” which is not really a brine. It’s dry salting. You do this by weighing the turkey breast in grams — yes, you need a scale
— and then weighing out 1.5 percent of that weight in kosher or sea salt. Add to this some brown sugar (that weight need not be exact) mix and massage into the turkey breast.
Ideally you’d vacuum seal it and set it in the fridge for at least 3 days, and really up to a week or more — this cure will not make the turkey breast too salty, unlike other ways of brining or salt curing.
Once you have that set, you need to dry the turkey breast to form what’s called a pellicle on the surface of the meat. A pellicle is a thin sheen or skin of denatured proteins that, when it dries out a bit, becomes tacky. This allows smoke to adhere to the meat far better then if you put wet meat into a smoker. This is an important step in smoking ignored by a lot of amateurs. Don’t be that guy.
I like smoking over fruit woods (cherry in this case), but you can use whatever. Oak, hickory, walnut, beech, alder, mesquite… Whatever you want will be fine, only no conifers! Pine pitch and turpentine are not good eats.
To give the turkey one last punch, I paint it with something sweet. I used honey here, but maple syrup, birch syrup, agave nectar, a fruit syrup or even molasses would work. Why do this? Um… is there a person on earth who doesn’t like the combination of sweet-salty-smoky-meaty?
I didn’t think so.
I generally use a smoked boneless turkey breast as lunch meat, for sandwiches. But if that’s not your thing, make a meal out of it and serve your smoked turkey warm. Maybe with a gravy. You can also slice, then roughly chop, your smoked turkey for the meat in turkey tacos.
Once made, this will keep about a week in the fridge, and it freezes well.
Smoked Wild Turkey Breast
Ingredients
- 1 skinless turkey breast, trimmed (see note above)
- kosher salt (see note above)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup honey, maple syrup or other syrup
Instructions
- Mix together the salt and sugar. Massage the mixture into the meat and, ideally, vacuum seal it. If not, put the salted turkey into a freezer bag. Set in the fridge for at least 3 days to cure.
- Remove the turkey breast from the bag and set it in the fridge, uncovered, for an hour or three to form the pellicle, a sheen that allows the turkey to take on smoke better. Turn the turkey over a few times while you do this. Don't skip this step!
- Smoke the turkey slowly at about 200ºF until it reaches an internal temperature of about 160ºF -- this takes about 4 hours with my smoker. Let the turkey smoke undisturbed for an hour, then paint it with honey every 45 minutes or so until it's done. When the turkey is ready, take it out of the smoker and set it on a rack. Paint it one more time with the honey and serve any way you like it: Warm for dinner, or cold for sandwiches.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
The only way I smoke turkey breast when I have them.
Good recipe for slicing and sandwiches. It makes a mean grilled cheese
Followed this recipe but did with a whole Turkey. Came out amazing…we ate the breast for dinner and I saved the rest to use in one of Hank’s soup recipes.
How long could you do leave the salt brine in the fridge in a meal saver bag? I got called away for work and it’s been in there 15 days. Is it still worth smoking?
Joe: Whoa. 15 days! That’s a really long time. I suspect the meat is either bad, or is very very salty.
Outstanding recipe! The best of any wild turkey I’ve ever had.
One of my favorite turkey breast recipes. It makes for awesome turkey sandwiches!
Hi hank, quick question, would there be any reason for curing this breast with some sort of nitrite salt? I see that you use nitrite salts for some of your smoker recipes and not for others. Thanks
Yaro: You could, but it will make the turkey taste sort of like ham. I generally do not with turkey. If you do, use 0.25% Instacure No. 1 by the weight of each breast.
Thanks Hank, will be smoking some turkey this weekend. I did your pork chop recipe the week prior and those were fantastic. Much obliged
Hi Hank,
Do you paint the turkey with glaze before AND after smoking? I wasn’t sure from the directions.
Thanks!
Turkey Town: During smoking, and once afterwards.
Great! Thank you! We made yellow birch syrup for the first time, hoping it will make a nice glaze.
Just finished up a pair of turkey breasts from a tom I took last week in Wisconsin. Great recipe! Brined for 4 days, sprinkled with garlic and onion powder and let pellicle form for 4 hours in fridge. Smoked on Weber Smokey Mountain with cherry at 200, but got to temp after only 2 1/2 hours, so only had two layers of honey glaze on it. Next time I will glaze ever half hour. Excellent flavor, very tender, not too salty, honey is a great addition. Best smoked turkey I’ve had, Thanks!
Hank, do I need to rinse the salt off after I take it out of the bag and before I rest it uncovered in the fridge?
Jay: I give it a very quick rinse and pat it dry with paper towels.
Best juicy and tender turkey – I’ve ever had (even for domestic birds). I’m not much of a fan of the salt taste though. Did the dry brine for 3 days and the pellicle for half day. To reduce the salt taste, could I reduce the number of days on brining, use less salt or ? Thanks so much. My 15 yr old son is getting pretty good at hunting and I need to become a better cook.
Did anyone have this issue…..the honey brushed on created a tough exterior? Sort of like a tougher hot dog skin.
I brined with my own brine recipe and followed the instructions from drying off before smoking on the grill til finish. Mine came to temp right at 4 hrs. The inside is tender, moist & flavorful. No smoke ring or smoky flavor really. But that outside tough exterior though. It’s so tough. I feel like if I had a commercial slicer, I’d slice both breasts for deli meat. I’m new to my Traeger, so I needed to follow a recipe rather than create one.
Tara: It’s not the honey. Wild turkeys have a very thin, but tough membrane on the outside that will harden up when smoked. It’s a pain to remove, and I rarely do, but it is something you have to reckon with.
Is the amount of salt being in proportion to the meat meantnto keep it from getting too salty?
Chase: Yes, exactly.
Just a note for those of us who don’t read the fine print. 1.5 percent of salt. Not 1.5 times the turkey weight. I figured it out the next morning. :(.
I used this recipe yesterday and the breast turned out very well. I brined the whole breast before I trimmed it and cooked the flat piece on the stovetop after trimming it off. I noticed that the brown sugar make this meat sweet, however the smoked breast was not sweet at all (both pieces were delicious). Why did the smoked part turn out differently? Does the prolonged exposure to the heat take away the sweetness?
How big was Turkey that you smoked at 200 degrees for 4 hours.
Chris: I just smoked the breast. It was from a smallish tom about 19 pounds.
Did you change this recipe I thought you used to describe shaping the breast and trussing it
Jeff: Yes, I used to do that, but it was a bit persnickety and didn’t add much to the finished product.
Tried this morning, done at about 3 hours. I peppered them real good after drying in the fridge. They look and taste great. Thanks for sharing.
This recipe turned out great!! Best turkey that I’ve ever eaten!!
Did this with a Jake this year. Super easy and good. Watch the temp of the bird when cooking, mine was done before the 4 hours.
Hello,
thanks for sharing this recipe…sounds great! I got my first wild turkey last weekend. I cleaned up the bird (breast & legs) and put in salt water for 24 hours or so in fridge. Then froze. I decided to smoke it now and it’s been in the fridge thawing last couple days. Should I brine again…basically start fresh with this recipe?
Mike: No need to brine again. Just let it thaw and smoke it!