I made Ina Garten's easy turkey breast recipe, and it's great for a last-minute Thanksgiving dinner

Ina Garten published a recipe specific for turkey breast, rather than the whole bird, on her Barefoot Contessa website.

It looked simple but still bright in flavor, which is right up my alley.

Garten's recipe calls for white wine, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, dried mustard, salt and pepper, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

She suggests fresh herbs, and while you can always use dried instead, I highly recommend going the fresh route. They will give your dish a beautiful aroma and add a layer of much-needed depth to an otherwise flvorless turkey.

I felt like this was a rule the cosmo-drinking cooking goddess would approve of, so I measured out what I needed for the recipe and then poured myself a glass.

Cheers, Ina!

Lemon juice and wine added acidity while olive oil brought richness. Minced garlic and chopped herbs added some texture to the thin and runny rub.

After mixing, I dipped my pinky in to give it a taste. The mixture was lemony and garlicky and herby all at once.

It also had a strong aroma that was making me drool — no shame here!

The recipe is measured out to cover a whole bone-in turkey breast between 6 1/2 and 7 pounds in weight. I was only feeding myself and my roommate, so I was working with a one-pounder.

Though my meat was significantly smaller, I still made the full amount of rub because I wanted to be able to use it as a side sauce.

After using my hands to massage the mixture into each crevice of my turkey breast, I used half of the remaining liquid to flavor my green beans and the other half sat on my dinner table as a delicious, spoonable sauce.

Since I don't have a full-sized wire rack or a deep roasting pan, I had to find other things to use.

A foil-covered baking sheet and the small, round rack that came in my Instant Pot became my makeshift roasting mechanism.

It only worked because my turkey breast was small enough to fully fit on the rack, which was only slightly larger in diameter than my full hand.

Nevertheless, it was a success! The rack elevated my turkey enough for me to be able to pour more wine onto the pan underneath it as per Garten's instructions.

The celebrity cook recommends using a meat thermometer to check for doneness.

I don't have a meat thermometer, so I went a little rogue and cooked my turkey — which was around six pounds lighter than the one in her recipe — for the suggested 90 minutes and hoped for the best.

I wasn't too worried because I knew I could put it back into the oven if the meat was raw when I cut into it.

Luckily, it was perfectly cooked and still a little juicy inside.

Was this the tastiest main dish I've ever made? No. But, to be fair, I think roasted turkey meat isn't that good to begin with.

The rub, on the other hand, was delicious. It took less than 10 minutes to make, and I was able to put the bird in the oven and move on to cooking something else until it was done.

I would definitely recommend making more rub than you need for whatever sized turkey breast you have. Use the extra to flavor your veggies and to pour over everything else on your dinner plate that night.

The flavors muted after being roasted onto my poultry, but adding more sauce on my plate breathed new life into them.

If you're scrambling for a last-minute dinner, or you forgot to marinate or brine your turkey breast, I think this recipe is a perfect Hail Mary.

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