Honey Baked Turkey Breast

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This Honey Baked Turkey Breast is the best main dish for a smaller Thanksgiving crowd! With a herb-seasoning rub and a sweet and savory honey glaze, this easy-to-make turkey breast is more flavorful than your average holiday turkey. Serve with all of your favorite side dishes!

Sliced honey baked turkey breast on a dinner plate with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

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Why You'll Love This Honey Baked Turkey Breast
Ingredients
Instructions
Substitutions and Alterations
How to Store Leftover Cooked Turkey Breast
Top tip!
Recipe FAQs
Related Recipes
Honey Baked Turkey Breast
Reviews

Why You'll Love This Honey Baked Turkey Breast

So easy! With a simple oil, dried herb, and seasoning rub, you can prepare the turkey breast for cooking in under 15 minutes. You also just combine all glaze ingredients in a pot and simmer for 5 minutes, while the turkey is cooking. Then, just brush the glaze on top, finish roasting, and you're done!
Actually flavorful and juicy! With both a herb-seasoning rub and a homemade honey glaze, the turkey breast gets flavored before and after roasting. By checking the temperature as the turkey cooks, you also ensure that it cooks to the proper temperature without letting it overcook and dry out.
Perfect for a smaller crowd! Turkey breasts have less meat than the standard whole turkey, making this recipe perfect for a Thanksgiving crowd of about 6 to 8 guests. If you prefer white meat turkey, but have a large crowd, you can also easily double or triple the recipe, depending on the number of guests you plan to feed.

Ingredients

A few notes about the ingredients:

Bone-In Turkey Breast: This recipe requires a bone-in turkey breast, so make sure you don't buy boneless! Bone-in is larger and will offer more flavor to the turkey meat with the bones still attached while roasting. The amount of seasoning and cook time is also tested specifically for a bone-in turkey breast.
Dried Herbs and Seasonings: While fresh herbs offer great flavor, I like to use dried herbs and seasonings in the flavoring rub so that they don't burn. They impart good flavor on the turkey meat and evenly distribute throughout the top and cavity of the bird.
Apple: I like to use an apple to add additional flavor and "plug" the hole in the back of the turkey. You can also use an orange, pear, or other hardy fruit if you don't have an apple.
Orange Juice: Orange juice helps create a "gravy" from the drippings in the bottom of the pan. It also adds flavor and some juiciness to the turkey. You can use store-bought or fresh OJ.
Honey: For the glaze, it may seem like a lot of honey, but this is the base for the sauce. Once the glaze reduces a bit in the pot, the honey helps it become a bit thicker and brush-able.
Whole Grain Mustard: Whole grain mustard can be found in the "condiments" aisle of your grocery store, near the yellow and dijon mustards. It's tangy and a bit vinegary to help balance the sweetness of the honey.

⭐️ See recipe card below for descriptions and quantities of each ingredient.

Instructions

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 baking dish or large roasting pan with nonstick spray.
Step 2: Remove any gravy packets or internal packaging from the turkey breast and discard. Pat dry with paper towels and place in the prepared baking dish.

Dried herbs, seasonings, and oil whisked together in a bowl.

Step 3: In a small bowl, add olive oil, dried oregano, dried thyme, marjoram, garlic powder, onion powder, ground mustard, salt, and pepper. Whisk until it forms a paste.

Seasoning and oil mixture rubbed all over the raw turkey breast.

Step 4: Rub seasoning paste all around the turkey breast. Carefully use your hands to separate the skin from the meat and rub the seasoning under the skin, as well as on top.

Bay leaves and apple stuffed in the turkey breast's cavity.

Step 5: Fill the underneath cavity of the breasts with the bay leaves and the whole apple.

Orange juice poured over the raw turkey breast.

Step 6: Pour orange juice over the top of the turkey.

Step 7: Roast turkey breast, uncovered, for 1 hour.

Step 8: While the turkey cooks, make the glaze by adding honey, whole grain mustard, white wine, butter, fresh thyme, and salt to a small saucepan. Simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

Step 9: When the 1 hour is up, brush the glaze over the entire top of the turkey.
Step 10: Roast for 15 more minutes, then repeat brushing the glaze over top.
Step 11: Roast again for another 15 minutes. Brush with glaze again. Check the internal temperature of the turkey. If it registers under 165 degrees F, place back in the oven and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the temperature registers 165 F.

Honey glazed turkey breast in a baking dish.

Step 12: Brush one last time with glaze, cover with foil, and let rest for at least 20 minutes before carving.

⭐️ Tip: Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the turkey breast each time you brush it with the honey glaze. Depending on the size of your turkey breast, it may not take as long as mine did. Checking the temperature ensures that you don't overcook it.

Substitutions and Alterations

Bone-In Turkey Breast - If you prefer to cook a whole turkey, instead of just a turkey breast, you will need to double the ingredients. However, the instructions should be fairly similar. Then, just adjust the cook time to about 13 minutes per pound (a 15 pound turkey will take around 3 hours), but a meat thermometer is your best option here!
Dried Oregano, Thyme, Marjoram - If you don't have these individual spices on hand, you can use italian seasoning instead.
1 Small Apple - Any other small, hardy fruits should work, like an orange, pear, or lemon.
Honey - Pure maple syrup would work well in place of honey. Simmer for an additional minute or two to help the glaze thicken because maple syrup is a little runnier than honey.

Sliced honey baked turkey breast on a serving platter.

How to Store Leftover Cooked Turkey Breast

To store: Store any leftover honey glazed turkey breast in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 4 days.

To freeze: You can freeze cooked turkey in a freezer-safe container for up to 6 months.

Top tip!

The turkey breast may not sit upright in the baking dish. This is okay, just lay it on its side and flip, using 2 forks, halfway through cooking so both sides can brown. If it’s browning too much, you can tent with foil for the remainder of the cook time.

Honey baked turkey breast served with green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and stuffing.

Recipe FAQs

What can I serve with this honey baked turkey breast?

This honey baked turkey breast is great year-round, but goes exceptionally well with the all of the Thanksgiving side dish staples, like mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, or roasted vegetables.

How long does it take to defrost a turkey breast?

For a 6 to 8 pound turkey breast, it'll take about 2 full days to defrost in the refrigerator. Defrosted raw turkey can also sit a day or two in the fridge, so if you're worried about the turkey defrosting in time, you can always defrost it a day or so earlier!

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