An amazing Poultry Brine to add flavor throughout the Chicken, Turkey, and other poultry. Heavily concentrated with Chicken Flavor and Umami. This Poultry Brine adds more flavor to Rotisserie Chicken and other poultry dishes. It is absolutely fantastic in places where you brine and season the poultry to cook.

It’s more than just a brine, too. Freeze the Poultry Brine into ice cubes and add to Gravies, Soups, Stews, and Rice to really kick it up a notch. Add 1 – 2 Ice Cubes to stove top mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes as a flavor enhancer.

Brine VS Marinade

Brines are more concentrated in Salt, usually with Sugar added. While Marinades are more focused on Flavor.

Technically, this is a marinade recipe with a Salinity of about 2 %. Brines often contain a salinity level of 5 % or more. The Standard brine is 1 Tbl of Salt per 1 Cup of Water. With brines, meat is fully submerged for 1 or more days and then removed and usually washed before cooking.

With this Poultry Brine, you can adjust the Salinity levels by increasing the salt, while all other ingredients stay the same for 5 cups of water.

Maggi Bouillon Cubes

Maggi Bouillon Cubes are far superior in taste to anything I have tried before. Best Flavor and cheap too. Getting about 48 cubes for around $5.00 CAD. Which translates into about 96 Cups of Broth. I wrote a Food For Thought Post just on Maggi Bouillon Cubes and it’s uses.

Cream of Tartar

Cream of Tartar also adds acidity, which further assists in tenderizing the poultry and brings with it an acidity taste. Interestingly, it is good to note that it is potassium-based, which is the opposite of salt as far as the body is concerned. This works extremely well in balancing out a brine, which is a water and salt solution.

Brining Chicken Pieces

This is a light brine solution of about 2 % salinity, meant for small pieces of meat to be brined for 1-4 hours. It can be used for whole poultry, but requires overnight brining or Turkey with an increase in salinity.

The Salinity may be increased based on your preferences. A good starting point is anywhere from 1 1/2 Tbl – 2 Tbl of Sea Salt for the 5 cups of water. Which brings the Salinity to about 2% – 3 %.

If you want the flavors to concentrate even further into the meat, then pierce the chicken with a fork a bunch of times to allow the brine in. You can brine the chicken skin on or off. With skin on, it takes longer to permeate the chicken.No need to wash it off, just cook it straight from here.

Whole Chicken Poultry Brine

For larger Poultry like a 3-4 lb whole chicken, place in a Plastic bag, to fully submerge the chicken to brine overnight. With larger poultry such as turkey, you will need to double or triple the brine solution. The Salinity can also be increased if preferred by increasing the Salt added.

Fried Chicken Marinade

For Fried Chicken or any Chicken that is breaded before being deep-fried, there is a marinade that I use which is based on this Poultry brine.

The concentration of Chicken Bouillon is much higher and Cream of Tartar is not included. This is because the Cream of Tartar will cause the breading to go flaky, which is not desired in Fried Chicken. However, it really elevates Gravy, Soups, and Stews with the addition of Cream of Tartar.

The Garlic & Onion is also not included. This is optional, though. You can include or not.

JFC Frickin Good Chicken

Just marinate the Chicken in the above Fried Chicken Brine. No egg or milk is required. Bread the Chicken straight from the Brine to JFC Frickin Good Chicken Breading. This is my favorite way of preparing JFC Fried Chicken, and it really elevates the flavor for some outstanding Fried Chicken.

Popeyes Style

For Popeyes style, I prefer using the above Fried Chicken Brine as the added liquid instead of milk. Milk tends to assist in browning the chicken much faster. Using the Fried Chicken Brine will prevent that as well as contribute a concentrated chicken flavor throughout and add to that yellow color.

The above Fried Chicken Brine is mixed with JAH Deep Fry Batter to create the Popeyes style marinade for breading Popeyes Chicken. Creating extra crunch as the breading is lifted away from the meat and fried crispy.

Rotisserie Chicken

Place the cleaned and trimmed Whole Chicken into a plastic brining bag with the Poultry Brine. Tie it off and place it into a large bowl or pot to refrigerate overnight. The next day, remove it and season it any way you like before roasting it.

You can optionally pat it down dry and refrigerate for a few hours to further dry the skin out. This helps with crisping and browning the Chicken.

The Poultry Brine recipe is excellent with Roast or Rotisserie Chicken. Seasoned any way you like or with JAH Rotisserie Seasoning.

Turkey Poultry Brine

For Turkey, it is recommended to increase the Salt percentage. Use 2 Tbl of Sea Salt & MSG per batch at minimum or more Salt for the desired salinity levels.

The Poultry brine is excellent with Roast Turkey too. Especially with a coating of JFC Breading on the Turkey, Wow! What an amazing Turkey. It just seals in the natural juices. It’s how I make Turkey almost every time and is now the Holiday Turkey every year. Well that or Fried Chicken.

It doesn’t create a crispy Turkey, because it’s not deep-fried. However, it seasons the turkey and creates juicy meat, while at the same time flavoring the drippings to turn into a gravy later.

Then, if you preserve some of the Poultry Brine, say about 1/2 C, and save that for the gravy made with the turkey drippings. Wow, what a fantastic gravy.

Save some of the drippings from the Turkey to drizzle over the prepared meat to keep it even juicier. Season it with Salt & Pepper.

Gravies

A good amount added to Gravies really elevates the flavor. I usually add 1/2 C – 3/4 C of the Poultry Brine to JFC Gravy. Remember that the Brine Solution already contains salt, as does the broth. So adjust the salt if needed after adding in the Brine Solution.

Mixed Vegetables

Mixed vegetables that are heated on the stove top to serve as a side can benefit with 1 – 2 ice cubes of Poultry brine. Along with a big spoonful of butter added to the pot.

I add it to things like Waxed Beans, Green Peas, Corn, Mixed Vegetables. Real simple, with tons of flavor. This for me is usually sat on the back burner, with no heat. Just the heat that comes up from the oven while the stove is cooking the protein. Unless I’m not using the oven, then the heat is set to low to heat the vegetables through.

Mashed Potatoes

1 or 2 Ice Cubes of Poultry Brine added to Mashed Potatoes along with Butter & Cream for some really tasty mashed potatoes. Heat the Ice cubes up until melted and boiling hot, add it to the mashed potatoes.

Freezing Poultry Brine

I often freeze these into ice cubes and once frozen move them to a Ziploc bag where I can store them and use them at any time. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Already frozen ice cubes to add to various dishes to layer it with more flavor.

Poultry Brine Salinity

To calculate Salinity, multiply the weight of the water by the salinity desired. Usually anywhere from 2 % – 5 %.

Water Weight X Desired Salinity (2 % – 5 %) = Salt in grams

An extra 1/2 Tbl of Salt & MSG will bring it up to about 3% Salinity. This is ideal for larger pieces of poultry, like whole Turkey. The MSG also contains 1/3 parts of sodium. Bringing the Salinity a small amount higher than the calculated Salinity levels.

This is an extremely simple way to calculate Brining Salinity and doesn’t account for the weight of the Meat minus the bone weight for Equilibrium Brining as well as the brine times. Which are much longer in Equilibrium brining. The topic of brining goes much deeper than this.

Standard Brine Solution

For a typical or the standard Brine Solution also called a Gradient brine. It is 1 Tbl of Sea Salt (approx 20 g in my case) per 1 cup of water (approx 224 g). Which is a salinity level of about 9 %.

Turkey is brined overnight or longer, usually rinsed and cooked. With this technique, you do run the risk of over brining. In general, Turkey is brined 1 hour for every 1 lb.

Poultry Brine Additions

With the base brine solution in place at 2 % – 3 % or higher if you choose. Add additional Herbs & Spices to your liking.

Add a small amount of Soy Sauce. Which may be added without affecting the salinity all that much. Because soy sauce itself is salty. It also contributes to color as does Paprika, Anatto, or Turmeric, depending on how much you use.

Add Sugar to bring sweetness to the dish. Careful with the amount of Sugar. While a small amount can assist in getting a good Maillard reaction for a perfectly golden Turkey. Too much of it can cause the turkey to brown too much. Especially when smoking Turkey.

Include Hot Peppers, Chili Flakes, Chili Peppers, or Hot Sauce to bring a bit of heat.

Milk or Yogurt can be added in small amounts to help tenderize the meat.

It’s really all up to you and with a solid base established, you can experiment and find what you like.