How to make smoked, grilled turkey breast (the easy way)

OK, pay attention. I’m going to give you one of my best grilling secrets.

I’d say my two favorite things about this turkey recipe is that it is so easy, and so good. We are kind of cheating in a way, but hey
who’s keeping track of that if you are eating well? 🙂

First, you need a smoked turkey breast. Basically, you want to buy one that you would normally see in a supermarket that they slice up for lunchmeat. I get mine at a warehouse club.

One thing to mention here, it has been my experience that you always want to get one that says ‘carving’. I got one once that wasn’t smoked and it said ‘slicing’ I believe. You do NOT want to use that kind for what we are doing here. I think the meat is processed on the other one and the ‘carving’ is ‘real’ for lack of a better term.

One more thing. You want to make absolutely certain that what you are buying is FULLY COOKED. Like I said before, this is what a supermarket buys, unwraps, slices and sells. You DO NOT want to try this with a raw turkey breast.

First, unwrap the turkey. The ones I get are packed in gelatin, you want to scrape that off.  Then I rinse it under water. I get off as much of the gelatin as I can, but if you have a little left here and there it is no big deal.

Now you can rub on a little olive oil if you want to and cover with some fresh ground pepper. I didn’t use olive oil on this one, only pepper. Really, you don’t have to use anything if you don’t want to.

Now all you need to do is throw it on a hot grill. I put them top side down for the first 15 minutes.

Then you want to flip it. Be careful, it’s not easy to flip. I use some big grilling tongs I have and a metal grilling spatula. I grab hold with both of them and kind of flip/roll it over.

Here is a picture after I flipped the turkey.

After I flip it, I cook it another 20 minutes or so. Really, you are just heating the turkey up. It makes some nice grill marks and maybe adds a little taste, but like I said before, we are kind of cheating and you really don’t have to do much for this to be good. The main thing you want to be careful of is not to cook it too long and dry it out.

Here is a pic of the final product.

You should always let a piece of meat rest a bit after grilling before slicing. This lets the juices redistribute before slicing. I really don’t know if it matters with this as it is already cooked, but I always let it sit for 15 minutes or so.

Then slice it up.

This is so good you are not going to believe me until you try it for yourself. I’m serious, try it. It is some of the best turkey you are ever going to eat. I guarantee you have had a lot worse.

Here is a funny story of how I came upon doing this the first time, just in case you were wondering 🙂

I was volunteered to cook some lamb for an Easter holiday meal. I bought the lamb and the expire date wasn’t that far away from when I was going to cook it. I would have rather had something a little fresher, but I figured it would be fine.

Anyway, I fired up the grill the day of and went to pull out the lamb. When I went to pull it out, I realized it had gone bad. It hadn’t reached the expire date yet, but I could tell it was no longer good. Dang! Not good timing at all.

So I figured I might as well take it back and grab whatever I could find to throw on the grill. Remember, the charcoal was already lit 🙂

So I fly back to the store, return the bad product, and the meats were pretty wiped out. If you’ve ever tried to buy meat right before a big holiday, you know what I’m talking about. The only thing I could find was one of these turkey breasts. I thought, “Well, it is already cooked, so I’ll just heat it up on the grill and take it with us. It’s that or nothing.” I wasn’t sure if my charcoal would even still be going by the time I got home, so I wasn’t looking to cook anything a long time.

I did what I just told you above and took the turkey for Easter, expecting people to half laugh at me. I got quite the opposite reaction. Everyone loved it, including me. I told them all I did was heat it up but everyone still thought I was some kind of master chef. They liked it so much, I make it almost every holiday now.

I’ve said before I’m all for making life a little easier. Chalk one up for poor planning 🙂

Enjoy!

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