Oven roasted BBQ turkey breast is a delicious different alternative to roasting up a whole turkey, with baked-in BBQ flavor that won't disappoint!
Welcome back to your weekly recipe from scratch around grocery sales and affordable ingredients! Turkey breast often goes on sale, especially around the holidays, and is such a great and easy alternative to roasting up a whole turkey.
So let's do it up a little bit differently today. You know how sometimes you get a bunch of extra BBQ sauce when you splurge on take-out BBQ from your favorite restaurant? Well, let's not let that go to waste. (Or... use your favorite bottled variety.)
$1.00/lb is my buy price for frozen turkey breast, so I picked one up at a local grocery store last weekend and had it thawing in the fridge. I also had all these little cups of most excellent leftover BBQ sauce sitting in the fridge from the last time we got carryout at our favorite local BBQ joint, which is very good, but they throw in a ton of sauce.
Well, it seemed to me that these two great tastes really should taste great together, leading us inexorably to...
Oven Roasted BBQ Turkey Breast
Ingredients
7 lb bone-in turkey breast, thawed
1 lemon
Olive oil
Kosher salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste
1 cup prepared BBQ sauce
½ tablespoon minced garlic
½ tablespoon Italian seasoning
½ tablespoon smoked paprika
Directions
Spray roasting pan with cooking spray and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place turkey breast side up in roasting pan and brush with olive oil. Squeeze on the juice of one lemon, then place halves inside cavity (just tuck them in the end as shown above). Sprinkle generously with Kosher salt and pepper, then roast for 20 minutes at 400.
While turkey is roasting, mix together BBQ sauce, garlic, Italian seasoning, and paprika.
Remove turkey from oven after 20 minutes and reduce heat to 350 degrees. Brush turkey generously with prepared BBQ sauce and cook for another 2 hours at 350 or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees (so a total of two hours and 20 minutes).
Brush with additional BBQ sauce every 20 minutes until you run out of sauce (I had enough for four layers).
Once cooked through, remove turkey breast from pan and tent loosely with foil for at least 15 minutes before carving. (And yes: This pan did eventually come clean, lol. Line it with foil if you'd like to avoid a similar mess.)
Remove lemons, carve, and enjoy!
Such a juicy, flavorful way to enjoy turkey breast
The layers of BBQ sauce crisp up the outside nicely, while leaving the inside of the turkey breast perfectly juicy. Plus, your house will smell a-ma-zing while this is cooking. Everyone here was a fan, and this 7 lb turkey breast handily fed our family of four with plenty of leftovers.
I'll definitely be making Oven Roasted BBQ Turkey Breast again. Plus, what a convenient built-in excuse to get more of the good BBQ carryout the week before -- I'll need more of the "good sauce!" 😉
Oven Roasted BBQ Turkey Breast, easy print version
Oven Roasted BBQ Turkey Breast
Ingredients
- 7 lb bone-in turkey breast thawed
- 1 lemon
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt to taste
- Fresh ground pepper to taste
- 1 cup prepared BBQ sauce
- ½ tablespoon minced garlic
- ½ tablespoon Italian seasoning
- ½ tablespoon smoked paprika
Instructions
- Spray roasting pan with cooking spray and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Place turkey breast side up in roasting pan and brush with olive oil.
- Squeeze on the juice of one lemon, then place halves inside cavity (just tuck them in the end as shown above).
- Sprinkle generously with Kosher salt and pepper, then roast for 20 minutes at 400.
- While turkey is roasting, mix together BBQ sauce, garlic, Italian seasoning, and paprika.
- Remove turkey from oven after 20 minutes and reduce heat to 350 degrees.
- Brush turkey generously with prepared BBQ sauce and cook for another 2 hours at 350 or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees (so a total of two hours and 20 minutes).
- Brush with additional BBQ sauce every 20 minutes until you run out of sauce (I had enough for four layers).
- Once cooked through, remove turkey breast from pan and tent loosely with foil for at least 15 minutes before carving.
- Remove lemons, carve, and enjoy!
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PB
Sunday 26th of October 2025
This was good! Years later after the original posting "-) It's October 26th and my daughter asked why in the world I was making turkey breast so close to Thanksgiving. So I decided to look for a BBQ version. This turned out great. Made it in a Dutch oven. Got it to stand up so the bbq covered nicely.
rachel
Thursday 6th of November 2025
So glad that you enjoyed it! There's no reason we can't enjoy turkey different ways, even close to Thanksgiving, just like we enjoy chicken different ways the rest of the year. ;)
Varun Sharma
Friday 24th of April 2020
Fantastic dinner. I made it just as written no changes . I will make it again. I was VERY happy with the results. I was longing for something different and tangy and I found it. Thanks for this recipe
brenda
Monday 3rd of June 2019
The recipe still says 365 degrees Im only cooking mine to 165 degrees
rachel
Monday 3rd of June 2019
Sorry! I fixed it in the text but forgot to in the printable recipe -- done now.
Kendrick
Monday 21st of November 2016
Amazing recipe, It looks so delicious and easy to make. I am going to try it tomorrow. Thank You!
Joan
Sunday 10th of January 2016
I don't think turkey is supposed to be 365 degrees - I think you mean 165 degrees
rachel
Sunday 10th of January 2016
You're absolutely right -- oh my gosh. Fixed!