Ground Turkey Recipes

ground turkey recipes

Turkey Taco Salad. It’s guud.

Ground turkey is great for a change from ground beef. Though it was everyone’s diet darling through the 90s, I’m not personally convinced it’s any more healthful for you than lean beef. Still, I appreciate it on its own merit. But be aware of the labels. Just because it says “ground turkey” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s low fat.

Ground turkey breast is very lean (as little as 2% fat) and so should be treated with kindness and gentleness when cooking. Avoid cooking ground turkey breast for prolonged times, especially at high temperatures. It’s well-suited to quick-cooking recipes and recipes that also include some kind of sauce or other ingredients (like vegetables or eggs) mixed in with the turkey breast to keep it moist, like stir-fried or in lasagne.

If it’s just labeled ground turkey, though, it includes turkey thigh meat as well and can have up to 15% fat which is about the same as ground beef chuck. This higher fat ground turkey works great as a substitute for ground beef in recipes like chili, shepherd’s pie, and sausage for a slightly different flavor, or if you’re just of the nagging suspicion that your level of beef consumption has become slightly perverse.

If you can’t get ground turkey where you are, you can mince boneless skinless turkey breast in a food processor. It seems kind of gross, yeah, but throw the bowl and blade and everything in the dishwasher when you’re done and it’s really okay. You can even do several pounds at a go and freeze the home-ground turkey in 1-pound amounts (or whatever makes sense for your family).

Anyway, here’s some ace ground turkey recipes!

Turkey Burger


These turkey burgers are a great way to use ground turkey breast. The addition of salsa helps keep them juicy and putting the salt and pepper only on the outside keeps them from getting rubbery.

Turkey Taco Salad

Taco salad is a fantastic recipe to have up your sleeve for lazy days and turkey taco salad is a great way to make it even more dietary if you’re doing that diet thing.

Lasagne with Ground Turkey

My friend Alia from Cooking With Alia specializes in Moroccan recipes. This delicious and rich lasagne recipe with bechamel sauce is a way to use ground turkey if you’re not worrying about calories!

Turkey Stroganoff

Quick and simple stroganoff with mushrooms, carrots, and egg noodles from Chef Jason Hill.

Turkey and Zucchini Skillet

Dani Spies makes this easy and fast “skillet” dinner with ground turkey, zucchini and tomatoes.

Turkey Sausage

Using lean ground turkey breast instead of pork is a great (and Kosher!) way to make breakfast sausage with less fat. Divas Can Cook has this great recipe.

“Shepherd’s” Pie

Also think about recipes you make now with ground beef and consider swapping the beef for turkey. This Shepherd’s Pie recipe takes quite kindly to turkey. Of course, you’d rename it Gobbler’s Pie or something like that, right?

Chili

My dad’s chili, Texas-style! This chili recipe has enough spices and chiles and garlic and onions you won’t even notice the no-red-meat! Swap out lean ground turkey for a low-fat chili perfect for chilly chili nights!

1 Comment

  1. Deep Web on April 1, 2017 at 6:32 am

    I recently make a turkey meatball recipe that used Amy’s chunky tomato bisque for the sauce and I put it over spaghetti squash, you could also make the recipe using lot’s of different farmers market veggies.

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