A Legit Grilled Turkey Recipe

My last turkey recipe was obviously a joke, so I thought I would post a legit grilled turkey recipe. Although it might not be all that bad and sure would get a lot of laughs if you followed the other recipe and pulled that bird out on Thanksgiving…

This one is a legit recipe although it is only the turkey breast. I make this all year round when I’m tired of pork and beef. I start off with a basic brine of 1 cup of salt per gallon, apple juice or cider, garlic, black pepper, maybe some brown sugar, and into the fridge for 12-15 hours.

The next day I pull it out of the brine and rinse it off.

For this grilled turkey breast I decided to coat the breast in Penzey’s BBQ 3000 rub. So I pealed skin back that covers the breast like so:

At this point you can do all kinds of things to kick a grilled turkey up to the next level. Butter and herbs. A layer of sausage. Even slices of bacon or pepperoni. I just coated the turkey breast with BBQ 3000:

Once the breast is coated I pulled the skin back up and strategically placed some toothpicks to keep the skin from pealing back during the grilling process:

Then I slathered the turkey breast with veggie oil and gave it a dusting of an Italian herb mixture. The grill is set up for two zone grilling, in this case the flank method with coals on either side and the turkey breast in the middle with a couple chunks of apple:

Now inside for the sides. Nothing difficult here at all, and besides, with a healthy meal like smoked turkey breast a nice veggie will round out this well balanced meal. Side #1 was fresh green beans taken to the next level. I took a sheet of tin foil, laid down some strips of bacon, tossed some minced garlic and black pepper, put the beans on top of that, added some more minced garlic, black pepper and some more layers of bacon for a nice healthy side dish cooked in bacon grease!?!?!

Green Beans in foil take quite a while to cook on the grill in a foil pouch when smoking so get these on early unless you like reeeeaaaaallllyyyy crunchy green beans. Hey, we’re not perfect. We mess up too. In fact all the screw ups have helped hone our craft and help us hone your craft.

Side #2, grilled portabella mushroom caps. Pull off the stems, wipe clean with a paper towel. Never rinse mushrooms in water. They are sponges and will absorb too much water. I took the mushroom caps, threw them into a zip lock and added some Italian Dressing for about 20 minutes. Doesn’t take long at all to marinade mushrooms since they absorb liquids so readily:

Here’s the grilled turkey a couple of hours in, and as you can see here, the beans are not on. Yeah, forgot about the beans inside so we had some crunchy beans!?!?

Here we have the beans on and the ports grilling right over the heat. Nothing to cooking ports. Just grill them like a burger:

I pulled the grilled turkey at an internal temperature of 155 degrees and allowed it to rest for about 10 minutes and come up to the desired 160 degrees internal temperature.

Here we have the grilled turkey sliced and the a very good Pinot Noir to go with it being a Cima Calina provided by Fool’s Pappy:

The grilled turkey was very moist and delicious. The BBQ 3000 added a good deal of the flavor to the bird along the outside edges but would’ve probably been better served had I mixed the BBQ 3000 with some butter and made a compound butter to put in there to baste as it cooked. I just think the butter flavor would’ve helped as well. All in all, it was a very enjoyable night, for among other reasons, the process, the result and spending time with my dad….

If you have any questions about the above dish please feel free to comment below or email me.

If you liked this grilled turkey recipe, click here for more grilling recipes with turkey, click here

Also, you can follow us on our GrillinFools Facebook page and Instagram.

Bio
Facebook
Latest Posts

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.