Have you ever had that craving for roast turkey, but have no motivation to cook a full turkey?  Plus who wants to heat their house up during the summer with an oven?

Well the answer to those cravings is today’s post!  Today I am sharings a recipe for roast turkey breast that is made in the crockpot.  No need to slave over the oven, you can just set it and forget it.  I also chose this recipe based off of a recent conversation with one of my coworkers about how she doesn’t enjoy cooking, she isn’t sure if it is because she just doesn’t know how or if she really just hates the idea of cooking.  My advice to her was break out a crockpot and try this recipe, it is easy, short, and oh so delicious.  I told her that it would be good for her to give the set it and forget it portion of cooking a try to get her toes wet.

Gather up the ingredients and your trusty crockpot and give this a try!

Ingredients:

1 boneless or bone in defrosted turkey breast (I use Honeysuckle Boneless w/dark meat)

1 medium white onion

1 14.5 oz can of Chicken Broth (I use low sodium Swanson)

2-3 lbs red potatoes

Seasonings: granulated garlic, thyme, dill, salt & pepper

First let’s talk a little about the turkey breast.  You can find these frozen turkey breast normally right next to the full sized turkeys in the freezer section of your grocery store, they come in varying weights but most are 4-6 lbs.

I normally buy the Honesuckle White boneless breast with white and dark meat, this is because it is just what I seem to find in the stores near me and it runs about $8 per roast; which fits in my budget for meats.  It will easily server 4 without too many leftovers.  Just depends on your guests appetites.  I will go ahead and buy a couple at a time and keep them in my freezer for that go to meal or that random craving for Thanksgiving dinner in July.  Because these breasts are frozen you do need to do some prep the day before you want to cook your crockpot meal because we need to defrost the breast before cooking.  Now I will admit I have done this same dish with a partially frozen breast and it came out just fine; actually I am pretty sure that my breast this time was a little bit frozen.  While it is not normally suggested to use a frozen roast I am here to say I survived, but please use discretion when cooking poultry from a frozen state.

Now that you have defrosted your breast the next morning you are ready to get going.  The first thing you need to do is cut your onion in half and then those halves into 4 wedges.  Break the layers a part and put them at the bottom of the crockpot.

Your turkey breast and potatoes will rest on top of them.  Next up you want to take your breast out of its packaging, at this point you will notice that there is netting surrounding the breast.  Feel free to leave it on or remove it, for this time I decided to remove the netting.

  I always found it annoying trying to take the netting off the extremely hot roast when I am ready to serve so I decided to be a rebel and see what happens.  (Well the dramatic pause moment is that nothing happened it retained its shape and came right of the pot in one piece.)  So I suggest you do what feels right to you, both ways get the same results for me.  Once you have made your choice to remove or not remove the netting give the breast a quick rinse and pat dry.  Place the roast skin side up in your crockpot.  Now you need to season the breast with the above mentioned spices.  I do not have measurements because I tend to go by sight & smell versus exact measurements.  If I had to guess I would say I used about 1 -2 tablespoons of each one.  Also if you don’t like garlic use onion powder or none at all.  Feel free to add sage or even rosemary to the top anything goes at this point.

Once you have seasoned the roast to your liking drop your red potatoes next to or all around the roast however they fit best.  For me they are side by side because my crockpot is oval not round and I just have more room.  I then sprinkle additional salt and pepper over the potatoes and then pour the chicken broth around the sides.  Doing my best to not wash the seasonings off of the roast or potatoes.

Now all you need to do is place the lid on your pot set the crockpot to low and walk away for 6-7 hrs or until the internal temperature is 179 degrees.  Avoid opening the lid for the first 5 hrs, because the crockpot will have to regain the loss of heat and that can cause the food to take longer to cook.  If your crockpot tends to cook on the high side this could be done closer to 5 hrs.  I know mine runs high and it would have been done at 6 but I let it cook for 7.  It still maintained all the flavors and was not dried out but it was running closer to 206 degrees internally instead of the recommended temp of 179.

Once it is done cooking remove it from the crockpot and allow it to rest for 2-3 minutes then slice and enjoy!  When you give this a try please come back and let me know how it turned out, if you made any changes, or if you know of tip/trick that enhances things!