Turkey on Thanksgiving Day is a lot of work, to say the least. Is it worth it? Sure it is, but sometimes you might want to cut some corners and take it a little easier on what can be a stressful cooking day, too. We picked out this Rolled Stuffed Turkey Breast from Williams Sonoma because it looked like a great solution for those in need of a little ease with their turkey.

Except we had to change ours to Stuffed Turkey Breast. Not a lot of rolling happened, but I’ll explain why later.

Since this is a shortcut, technically, to your Thanksgiving bird, there’s also a shortcut in the ingredients - the stuffing is the boxed/bagged kind. But you’re going to kick it up with some fresh, sauteed onion, fennel, celery and plenty of fresh herbs. We used sage, rosemary and thyme, a kind of holy trinity of Thanksgiving at Full Fork Ahead.

Just give the onion, fennel and celery a little while to soften. Ours did need several minutes longer to do so, and we’ve noted that below. Just be the judge of when your batch is done. Add in those fresh herbs and it’s beginning to smell a lot like Thanksgiving dinner!

After this part, you’ll add in the cooked veggies with the stuffing in a large bowl, saturating it all with a few cups of warmed chicken stock, which is all set aside then to reconstitute and await the turkey. I’m, urr, not sure where my pics of that went!

Okay, so this fella, the turkey breast. I had the butcher at the store butterfly it for me, telling him we’d need to roll the dang thing up. It looked nicely butterflied at the time. And still in one whole piece. When I unrolled it for this, though, it had actually been cut in almost three separate pieces. Urrr….

At this point we had to try to pound it to a half-inch thickness. Which is so not easy, especially on the thicker upper portion. I had no meat mallet, so I used an unopened vegetable can like I always do, with the bird between two sheets of parchment paper. I dented the can. I did not get the meat pounded as thin as needed.

I was starting to feel a little angsty.

Because the meat was in almost three pieces, connected only thinly at the top, we put the stuffing smack in the middle. I kind of folded the meat up around the stuffing while sis blogging partner tied it off with some cooking twine.

Amazingly enough…this worked! The presentation isn’t as purty as the original from WS, but we were pleased considering the butcher butchered the butterflying.

Grab a platter and prepare that bird for annihilation! In other words, pretty it up for the table and prepare to feast. This smelled wonderful baking in the oven, and soon enough our taste buds were definitely rewarded.

Since we only made one turkey breast (the recipe calls for two), we baked the load of stuffing that was leftover in its own casserole dish to serve alongside. We wholeheartedly suggest this as there’s not a ton of room to put stuffing inside the breast after it’s been rolled or folded up.

We found this to be a wonderful solution to a quicker, somewhat easier turkey day celebration. No messing with a huge turkey if you don’t need to, or even a smaller whole one. This is obviously perfect for smaller parties, families of two or three or four. Hubby like it so much that he’s all for having it at our own dinner. Hope you enjoy!

Stuffed Turkey Breast

from Rolled Stuffed Turkey Breast, Williams-Sonoma Kitchen

Special equipment: kitchen twine or string and a meat thermometer

• 4 Tbs. (1⁄2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 4 celery stalks, diced
• 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and diced
• 2 Tbs. minced mixed fresh herbs, such as
  rosemary, sage and thyme
• 1⁄3 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1 box/bag bread stuffing, about 1 lb. total (we used Pepperidge Farm)
• 3 to 3 1⁄2 cups chicken stock, warmed, plus
  more if needed
• 2 boneless turkey breast halves, each about
  4 lb., butterflied by your butcher and pounded
  to 1⁄2-inch thickness
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 jar turkey gravy base, prepared according to
  package instructions, for serving

Notes:

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