Roasted Turkey

This fabulously delicious Roasted Turkey recipe is great, simple, moist, and ready right on time... the whole family will love it!

Ingredients

1 (16 - 20 pound) Turkey

For the brine:

1 cup sea salt

1 cup light brown sugar

3 quarts turkey or vegetable stock

2 tablespoon black peppercorns

2 1/2 teaspoons allspice

2 1/2 cups ginger ale

3 quarts heavily iced water

For the aromatics:

1 green apple, sliced
1 onion, sliced
2 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
6 sprigs rosemary
2 Tablespoon sage
Olive oil

Directions

1 to 2 days before roasting:

Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.
Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice, and ginger ale in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Early on the day or the night before you'd like to eat:

Combine the brine, water and ice in the 2 gallon stockpot. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 4 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining process.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Remove the trukey from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. 

Discard the brine.

Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.

Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey's cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Coat the skin liberally with olive oil.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 16 to 20 pound bird should require a total of 4 to 4 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil for 1 hour before carving.