Brining Guidelines

This chart can be used for general guidelines; however, in some cases recipes will specify different formulas and times (Cold Water, Table Salt, Sugar, Time):

Chicken

1 whole chicken 3½ to 4 pounds (2 quarts, ½ cup, ½ cup, ½ to 1 hour)

2 whole chickens 3½ to 4 pounds each (2 quarts, 1 cup, 1 cup, ½ to 1 hour)

4 pounds bone-in chicken pieces - whole breasts, split breasts, whole legs, thighs, and/or drumsticks (2 quarts, ½ cup, ½ cup, ½ to 1 hour)

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts - 6 to 8 ounces each (2 quarts, ¼ cup, ¼ cup, ½ to 1 hour)

Turkey*

1 turkey 12 to 17 pounds (2 gallons, 1 cup, no sugar, 6 to 12 hours)

1 turkey 18 to 24 pounds (3 gallons, 1½ cups, no sugar, 6 to 12 hours)

1 bone-in turkey breast 6 to 8 pounds (1 gallon, ½ cup, no sugar, 3 to 6 hours)

Pork

4 bone-in rib loin pork chops 12 ounces each, 1½ inches thick (1½ quarts, 3 tablespoons, 3 tablespoons, 1 hour)

1 pork roast 3 to 6 pounds (2 quarts, ¼ cup, ¼ cup, 1½ to 2 hours)

*Because turkey must roast for an extended amount of time, the sugar in the brine will cause overbrowning. Therefore, we omit the sugar in the brine for turkeys.

**These formulas are given for table salt. If using kosher salt, our rule of thumb is to use twice as much Diamond Crystal kosher salt as table salt and 1½ times Morton's kosher salt as table salt.

Brining Meat While Defrosting

If you freeze small cuts of meat, submerging it in a bucket of cold water on the counter speeds up the defrosting process. For recipes where the first step is a brine, we wondered if we could combine two steps into one by defrosting the meat directly in the brine. We partially thawed frozen chicken parts in fresh water, then completed the last half hour of thawing in the brine solution called for in the pan-roasted chicken recipe we were following. When cooked, the chicken was as well-seasoned and juicy as chicken that had been fully defrosted before brining.