Turkey gets a bad rep for being too laborious to cook and too dry to enjoy. You usually have to defrost the giant bird for a couple of days, brine it for at least a day to minimize it drying out, and then roast it for several hours while continually basting it. Enter: sheet pan Thanksgiving dinner (or Christmas dinner if you’re in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Hong Kong!). Rather than roasting a whole turkey, you instead roast just the breast, making it much more manageable and also making the entire process efficient by simultaneously roasting fall veggies and stuffing at the same time, all on a single sheet pan. You could even do this with a medium-sized chicken if you’re not a turkey fan. It’s perfect for a more intimate dinner for 2 to 4 people, or you can double the breasts and sheet pans to serve more people – just add cranberry sauce and gravy.
I ordered my turkey breasts from Golden Pig HK, as they supply Kelly Bronze turkeys from the UK, a highly prized breed of free-range turkeys used by the likes of Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay. The turkeys have more natural fat than your typical white turkey, so you may not even need to brine or baste them, but in case you can’t get your hands on a Kelly Bronze turkey, I’ll still be showing you how to dry brine since it’s definitely the best way to ensure a juicy turkey.
Dry brining refers to seasoning the protein ahead of time, like marinating but with salt and spices instead of liquids. The salt will first draw the moisture out of the meat before it gets reabsorbed back into the meat, which will keep it moist and succulent. It will also penetrate into the muscle fibers to infuse flavor and also tenderize the meat by breaking down the proteins. You could also do a wet brine, where the turkey sits in salted water with spices and aromatics, but doing a dry brine helps keep the skin on the turkey crispy when we cook it and also takes up less space, with less potential for cross contamination in your fridge compared to a wet brine — no one wants raw meat water leaking in their fridge! 😖
As for the sides, you can keep things classic by making traditional stuffing, roasted sweet potatoes with marshmallows or balsamic glazed Brussels sprouts, but I wanted to inject some of my favorite Japanese ingredients to switch things up. Stuffing it my absolute favorite Thanksgiving side, so I’ve added miso paste into my homemade sourdough stuffing that also has mushrooms for extra umami, plus kale for #health.
Maple and togarashi has become one of my favorite flavor combinations, which you’ll find as a glaze for bacon in my upcoming cookbook. Here we’re using it on roasted sweet potatoes to bring some sweet heat with citrus notes, garnished with dried cranberries and Sahale Snacks Valdosta Pecans (though you can omit or add any nut you’d like). Finally, there’s teriyaki brussels sprouts topped with pomegranate seeds for a bright pop of tangy flavor and color. Feel free to customize the sides as you wish! Just be mindful of how long different kinds of vegetables will take to cook so your sheet pan Thanksgiving dinner cooks evenly.
Sheet Pan Thanksgiving Dinner
Ingredients
Dry Brined Turkey Breast:
- 2 lb boneless, skin-on turkey breast
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
- Fresh ground pepper
Miso Mushroom Stuffing and Herb Butter for Turkey:
- 1 loaf sourdough or French boule, ripped or cut into 1 inch cubes 1-2 days before
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, divided
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 yellow onion, sliced
- 6-8 oz cremini or portobello mushrooms, sliced or chopped
- Handful of destemmed and ripped kale
- 2 cups chicken stock, divided, more as needed
- 1 tbsp white miso paste, more to taste (optional)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 3 tbsp minced fresh sage (about 1 bunch), divided
- 3 tbsp minced fresh thyme (about 1 bunch), divided
- 2 cloves minced fresh garlic
Teriyaki Brussels Sprouts:
- 10 oz Brussels sprouts, hard stems removed and cut in half
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 1-2 tbsp honey
- 1 clove minced garlic, optional
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Maple Togarashi Sweet Potatoes:
- 2 medium sweet potatoes (~16 oz), peeled and cubed
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 2-3 tsp togarashi
- 1/2-1 tsp wasabi
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Optional Garnishes:
- Pomegranate seeds
- Valdosta pecans or your choice of nuts, crushed
- Dried cranberries
- Fresh thyme sprigs
- Cranberry sauce
- Gravy
Instructions
- Optional: Dry brine the turkey breast the day before cooking your sheet pan Thanksgiving dinner to add extra flavor and juiciness to the turkey, and help get the skin extra crispy. Combine the baking powder with a pinch of salt and rub it all over the skin. Season the rest of the turkey breast meat generously with more salt, including under the skin, then store in the fridge loosely covered. The next day, use a paper towel to dry off the moisture that has drawn to the surface of the skin, and season the turkey all over with fresh ground pepper.
- Optional: Prepare the bread for stuffing by ripping or cutting it into roughly 1 inch/2.5cm cubes 1-2 days before cooking your sheet pan dinner so that the bread gets stale. Otherwise, follow the steps for the bread below.
- Preheat the oven to 375F/190C about 1.5-2 hours before you want to eat dinner. Gather the rest of your ingredients and let the butter soften in a small bowl on your counter.
- If you did not dry brine the turkey, season it generously with salt and pepper, including underneath the skin and set aside.
- If your bread is not stale, bake the cubes of bread on your sheet pan for 15 minutes until completely dry, then set aside to cool.
- Cook the onions for your stuffing Heat 1 tbsp of butter and the oil and over medium heat in a nonstick high-walled skillet, then add the onions with a pinch of salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Cook the vegetables for your stuffing. Add the mushrooms and cook for 3-4 minutes until they start to brown, then add the kale and a splash of chicken stock and the miso paste, cooking until the kale is wilted. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Combine the stuffing ingredients. Add the remaining chicken stock to a large bowl along with the bread, 3/4 of the sage and thyme, and the cooked mushrooms and kale, tossing to fully combine so the bread soak ups the chicken stock, adding more chicken stock only if needed. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes to soak everything up, then spread it out onto one half of your sheet pan, leaving a well in the center to fit your turkey breast.
- Make the herb butter. Combine the remaining sage and thyme with the garlic and butter until fully uniform.
- Spread the herb butter. Pat the skin of your turkey breast dry, then spread 1/2 of the herb butter underneath the skin of the turkey breast and place the breast onto the sheet pan in the middle of the stuffing. Add small dollops of the remaining butter all over the stuffing.
- Combine all of the ingredients for the Brussels sprouts, then add them onto one quarter of the sheet pan. Do the same for the sweet potatoes.
- Bake the sheet pan on the center rack of your oven. After 25 minutes, rotate the pan 180 degrees and stir the Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes for even cooking. After another 15 minutes, use an instant read thermometer to check on the temperature of the turkey. It’s ready once it reaches 150F/65C for a Kelly Bronze turkey, or 165F/74C for a regular turkey. If it still needs more time, continue cooking in 5-10 minutes increments until it reaches the target temperature.
- Remove the sheet pan from the oven once the turkey has reached the target temperature.
- Let the turkey breast rest to allow the juices to redistribute in the meat. Transfer the turkey breast to a cutting board and loosely tent it with foil, allowing it to rest for at least 15 minutes. If your vegetables need more time, you can put them back in the oven to continue roasting while the turkey is resting, covering the stuffing with foil to prevent it from burning if needed. Otherwise, leave the sheet pan in the turned-off oven with the door ajar to keep warm.
- Carve the turkey by slicing against the grain, then place it back onto your sheet pan.
- Garnish your sheet pan. Sprinkle pomegranate seeds on the Brussels sprouts, and the pecans or nuts and dried cranberries on the sweet potatoes. Garnish with fresh thyme for presentation. Serve with cranberry sauce and gravy and enjoy!
Notes
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see the final product. Tag your photos and stories on Instagram with @indulgenteats and #indulgentrecipes so I can see them!
