The first crockpot turkey breast I ever cared about came out of a dented white crock on a sideboard in Saint-Urbain, Quebec, in a dining room with eight chairs and a handwritten menu in French only. I had come for something hot before four days of walking. I got turkey, and I have been chasing it ever since.
Lucie runs the place out of the front half of her house. Her daughter took my jacket at the door, and there were three options on the paper, none of which I fully understood.
The Dining Room in Saint-Urbain, Quebec
I asked what the dinde was and instead of answering she walked me across the room to the crock. She lifted the lid about two inches, let me look, then put it back down fast like she was losing money. Steam, a bone-in breast sitting high on a raft of onion slices, one half of a garlic head collapsed in the corner.
In slow French, with a lot of pointing, she told me the butter goes under the skin and not on top of it. Her hand mimed sliding in between the skin and the meat, very gently, like she was checking a pocket. Her daughter filled in the rest in English.
The crock makes it tender. The oven makes it brown. Two separate jobs, and the crock cannot do the second one no matter how long you leave it.
Mine came out thick-sliced with gravy, mashed potatoes, and a small dish of cranberry that was almost certainly from a can. I ate all of it and then some bread with the gravy.
What Pascal Carried on the Traversée de Charlevoix
Lucie’s son Pascal guided the four days I walked on the Traversée de Charlevoix that same week, and he is the one who actually gave me the proportions. In the top of his pack, wrapped in two plastic bags, he had a tub of his mother’s herb butter. He used it on potatoes at the second hut, pushed around a hot pan with the back of a spoon.
While it melted he talked me through the turkey version. Garlic, thyme, rosemary, a little sage, salt, sweet paprika, onion powder, pepper. Two thirds of it under the skin, one third rubbed over the outside and the underside.
His mother’s other rule was about liquid. Half a cup of broth and nothing more, poured down the side of the crock so it does not rinse the butter off the bird. People drown it, he said, and then they wonder why the meat tastes boiled and the gravy tastes like dishwater.
Why Crockpot Turkey Breast Is Not an Old Recipe
I came home and read about it, because I assumed something that good had been handed down since forever. It has not. This dish exists because of an appliance.
The slow cooker was invented by a Chicago man named Irving Naxon, who applied for the patent in 1936 and got it in 1940, inspired by the long overnight cooking of Jewish cholent. He sold the business to Rival Manufacturing in Kansas City in 1970, and Rival relaunched the thing as the Crock-Pot at the 1971 housewares show in Chicago, marketed squarely at households where nobody was home all afternoon. Turkey breast came later, as a small-household holiday centerpiece and a way to keep the oven free for the casseroles.
So it is everyday North American home cooking with an appliance at the center of it, not an heirloom technique. Which I like more, honestly. It means the only tradition involved is somebody’s mother figuring out the broiler trick on her own.
What I Used
- A 6 lb bone-in, skin-on turkey breast, fully thawed. Fully. Not mostly.
- 6 tbsp soft unsalted butter for the herb butter, plus 3 more for the gravy roux
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced, and a whole head halved crosswise for the bottom of the crock
- 2 tsp kosher salt and a good teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tsp sweet paprika, not smoked, and 1 tsp onion powder
- Fresh thyme, rosemary and sage, chopped, plus whole sprigs to throw underneath
- Two large yellow onions, cut into thick half-inch slices
- Half a cup of low-sodium chicken or turkey broth. Half. That is the whole amount.
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour for the gravy
Cooking It in My Kitchen, Missing Charlevoix a Little
I buy the breast bone-in from a butcher counter rather than grabbing a boneless roast off the shelf, because those netted supermarket roasts are sometimes white and dark meat tied together, which throws the timing off completely. Bone-in, skin on, and I pat it bone dry with paper towels before anything else. Wet skin will not brown later, and the broiler finish is the entire point.
Last time I made it was a grey October morning, marine layer sitting on the street until almost noon, which is the closest my kitchen gets to Quebec weather. I made the herb butter in a small bowl with a fork, got under the skin with my fingers, and pushed most of it onto the meat from the outside. Onions in a single thick layer, garlic and sprigs tucked around them, breast on top, broth down the side. Lid on at nine.
Then the waiting, which I have learned to treat like an event rather than a chore. Harmonium on the speaker both times I have made it, the long side with the strings. Salted almonds and the end of a baguette with whatever herb butter is left on the fork, and at hour four a beer, and I do not lift the lid before then. Every peek costs you real heat.
A slow cooker turkey breast is not set-and-forget, whatever the box on the appliance says. The meat is lean and it punishes you. The first time I did this I let it ride to 170 F because the juices ran clear and I thought that meant something, and I sliced into dry turkey with excellent gravy. Clear juices prove nothing. Now I pull it at 155 to 160 F on the thermometer, well away from the bone, and let carryover heat take it to a safe 165 F while it rests.
Straight under the broiler on a rimmed sheet, six to eight inches down, three to eight minutes while I stand there and refuse to walk away. Then foil, twenty minutes of rest, and the strained juices into a roux in a small saucepan. Two cups of concentrated turkey stock, more or less, and it does not need help.
Carve against the grain in long slices and put the gravy on the table in something people can reach. If you only have a boneless roast, give it two and a half to three and a half hours on high or four to five on low and check the label first.
I made it again last week for no occasion at all, which Lucie would probably find strange. The cold slices the next day, eaten standing at the counter with the fridge still open, are better than the dinner was. I keep meaning to write to Pascal and tell him so.
Crockpot Turkey Breast
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Make sure the turkey breast is completely thawed. Remove any giblets or gravy packet from the cavity, then pat the breast very dry all over with paper towels, skin included. Dry skin is the whole reason the broiler finish works later.
- In a small bowl, mash the 6 tablespoons softened butter with the minced garlic, kosher salt, black pepper, paprika, onion powder, chopped thyme, chopped rosemary and sage until it looks like a thick green-flecked paste.
- Slide your fingers under the turkey skin at the top of the breast and loosen it from the meat without tearing it. Push about two thirds of the herb butter directly onto the meat under the skin, spreading it with your fingers from the outside. Rub the remaining third over the outside of the skin and into the underside of the breast.
- Lay the onion slices across the bottom of the slow cooker in a single thick layer, then tuck in the halved garlic head, 6 thyme sprigs and 2 rosemary sprigs. This bed lifts the breast above the liquid so it roasts in steam instead of boiling.
- Set the turkey breast on the onion bed skin-side up. Pour the 1/2 cup broth down the side of the crock, not over the breast, so you do not wash off the butter. Resist adding more liquid.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 5 to 7 hours, undisturbed. Do not lift the lid to peek in the first 4 hours, every look costs you heat. Start checking at 5 hours.
- Insert an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of the breast, away from the bone. Pull the turkey when it reads 155 to 160 F. Lean turkey breast overcooks fast, so stop here even if it looks pale.
- Heat the broiler. Carefully transfer the breast to a rimmed baking sheet or baking dish, keeping it skin-side up. Broil 6 to 8 inches from the element for 3 to 8 minutes, watching it constantly, until the skin is deep golden and blistered in spots.
- Tent the breast loosely with foil and rest 15 to 20 minutes. Carryover heat will carry it to a safe 165 F and the juices will settle back into the meat.
- While it rests, strain the cooking liquid through a fine-mesh strainer into a measuring cup, pressing the onions to get everything out. Skim off most of the surface fat. You should have roughly 2 cups of concentrated turkey stock.
- Melt the 3 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk in the flour and cook 1 to 2 minutes until it smells toasty. Whisk in the strained juices a little at a time, then simmer 3 to 5 minutes until the gravy coats a spoon. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
- Carve the breast off the bone in long slices against the grain, arrange on a warm platter and spoon some gravy over the top. Serve the rest of the gravy at the table.