[Boomer]

Thank you everyone for helping me with my turkey angst.

My only experience with brining has been limited to chicken breasts. I do those fairly often with a skinnytaste.com recipe (or was it my SkinnyTaste Air Fryer cookbook?).

Anyway, that recipe says to use Kosher salt and also includes an easy rub — and then the air fryer. The first time I tried this, I was surprised at how beautifully those chicken breasts turned out, so now we have them fairly often.

Before that, brining always sounded counterintuitive to me. But it definitely worked — and I even used a little less salt than the recipe said.

But now, I am facing a big turkey and expecting 16 people — and only 1 is a vegetarian, so here I go….

So far, I think I am inclined to brine because of my chicken breast/air fryer experience……..BUT, am I comparing apples to oranges. Ohhhhh, the angst, the angst.

To add to my over-thinking this thing — I watch sodium, so this morning I started a search on just how much sodium is added with brining. America’s Test Kitchen tested it with chicken and it did not seem terrible. It is not that I think extra sodium is going to hurt anybody on just Thanksgiving Day — I just don’t want the turkey to taste salty. As we all know, salt can be added at the table to taste, but we can’t get too much salt taste out once it’s in there. I will probably use a little less salt like I do with the chicken breast brining……..but is that OK to do with this huge hunka poultry I am picking up on Tuesday afternoon?

Some of you mentioned adding sugar. That is interesting. I would like to know more about that.

Thank you.

Boomer