Our delicous Ground Turkey Spaghetti is sure to be a HUGE hit with the whole family! We have perfected a sauce for you that is kid tested and approved, and most importantly, contains hidden veggies to satisfy your pickiest of eaters! BONUS: This easy turkey Spaghetti recipe can me made in 28 minutes or less!
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We love cooking with ground turkey to lighten up a meal! If you love ground turkey too, be sure to check out these belly-warming 10 Easy Ground Turkey Soups and our amazing and quick Turkey Burger Sliders. Or if you're looking more Italian-inspired cuisine, try our Recipe for Chicken Pomodoro and Lasagna Soup!
👍 Why we Love Ground Turkey Spaghetti
🍅 As always, this easy turkey spaghetti is doable in 28 minutes or less. Fast!
🍅 Not from scratch, but still feels like from scratch. A jar of your fave tomato sauce is the base, but then you add a bunch of things to it.
🍅 Hidden veggies add nutrition. Excellent for veggie-averse or picky eaters.
🍅 Extremely easy to make vegan, with only 2 ingredient swaps: nutritional yeast instead of cheese & pea protein crumbles instead of ground turkey
🍅 Oh, I almost forgot! Our turkey spaghetti has been approved and devoured by 5 kids and 5 adults ✔️
🤔 Why Hide Veggies in the Sauce?
While we don't believe we should dupe our kids, we also recognize that for some families, the veggie struggle is real. Hiding veggies in your veggie-loathing kids' turkey spaghetti delivers those missing nutrients.
My secret veggie idea was inspired by a cookbook I like: Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids to Eat Good Food, by Jessica Seinfeld (yes, Jerry Seinfeld's wife). Seinfeld incorporates vegetable purees in all of her dishes, for added nutrients. While our turkey spaghetti doesn't contain a puree, it does contain incognito veggies.
Looking for more recipes with hidden veggies? Check out our Beef Teriyaki Bowls, Sloppy Joes and Chicken Lettuce Wraps. All tasty, kid-friendly and doable in 28 minutes or less!
Note: All this being said, please note that we support kids consciously and conscientiously developing good eating habits for life. So, whenever possible, it's best for kids to know what they're consuming.
🛒 Ingredients
Notes in Ingredients:
- Spaghetti- we love thin spaghetti but choose your favorite kind!
- Onion- chopped and diced so they are barely detectable but still provide flavor.
- Grated Carrots - these add a naturally sweet flavor to the sauce that kids love!
- Mushrooms- finely chopped mushrooms add a savory, meaty flavor to a sauce.
- Zucchini- this veggie cooks down very nicely.
- Celery- chopped and cooked thoroughly to avoid the crunchy texture that some kids despise.
- Ground turkey- compared to ground beef, ground turkey is lower in saturated fat, making it our meat of choice for this dish. But you can certainly use lean ground beef or sausage for this recipe.
- Sauce-We like Newman's Own as a brand because it gives 100% of everything it makes to charity. But use whatever sauce you love.
🔪 Cooking Tools
Note: To be clear, you only need one knife. I used my Cutco Chef's Knife. The other knives shown are our recommended kids knives: Curious Chef Knife Set, Opinel Knife, & Made for Me Beginner's Knife for chopping, and Opinel kids peeler.
👩🍳 How to Make Ground Turkey Spaghetti
Step 1: Cook the Pasta
🥄 Kid Steps: This might be a no brainer, but let your kid be the master taster. My kids love deciding when the pasta is 'done' cause it means tasting a noodle every 2 mins.
Step 2: Prep and Cook Veggies
🥄 Kid Steps: Your kids can help prep the veggies. We recommend Curious Chef Knife Set, Opinel Knife, & Made for Me Beginner's Knife for chopping, and Opinel kids peeler. And it's weird, but swimming goggles are great for protecting little eyes while chopping onions. Kids see it as a fun costume too.
Step 3: Add Turkey, Tomato Sauce and Seasonings
🥄 Kid Steps: Have your kiddo use this Calphalon Potato Masher (or any similar tool you like) to break up the turkey as it cooks. It's a fun job.
Step 4: Mix Together pasta, sauce and cheese and enjoy your turkey spaghetti!
✔️ Expert Tips & Tricks
- To plate...serve turkey spaghetti in bowl or on plate. Any steamed veggie or garlic bread are great sides.
- You can play around with the veggie quantities, using more or less of each. Another good veggie to throw in is finely chopped celery.
- We've found that a potato masher helps to break up the ground turkey in the pan.
- This easy turkey spaghetti recipe can be made ahead and stored in the freezer for several months. It also tastes great the day after cooking and can be stored in the fridge for 3-5 days
🧂 Recipe Variations
- For picky eaters: Set aside some noodles without sauce and add just a little sauce to ease your kids into the flavor.
- For dairy-free folks: Replace the parmesan cheese with a couple tablespoons of nutritional yeast.
- For gluten-free folks: Opt for a different noodle, like rice noodles, Ancient Harvest quinoa pasta (careful not to overcook cause it can get mushy), or Trader Joe's Organic Brown Rice & Quinoa Fusilli Pasta. Also make sure your marinara sauce doesn't contain gluten.
- For vegan folks: Only 2 swaps. (1) turkey --> pea protein crumbles (huge fan of Beyond Meat's Beyond Beef Plant-Based Ground, which also happen to be gluten-free), and (2) parmesan cheese --> a couple tablespoons of nutritional yeast.
🍞 Sides for Turkey Spaghetti
- Garlic bread or simple rolls with butter
- Side salad- a simple green salad will definitely complement this dish
- Steamed veggies, like broccoli or peas (let your kids choose!)
- Roasted asparagus or other roasted veggies of choice
- Sliced, raw veggies, like cucumbers sliced for kids, carrots or celery stalks
❓FAQ
Yes! Simply make a batch of your sauce and freeze in a sealed, airtight container. The sauce should be good for a few months or more!
We love having this sauce as next-day leftovers, as the flavors of the sauce have had more time to meld. We recommend eating this sauce within 3-5 days of cooking.
You can try and pasta you'd like, though we prefer long, thin pasta like spaghetti, angel hair, fettuccini or pappardelle. Whole wheat spaghetti is also a great, healthy option, though it may add a few minutes of cooking time.
Any kind of ground meat will work nicely in this turkey spaghetti, including ground beef, chicken or sausage. You may vary your seasoning accordingly.
When given a choice, I prefer ground turkey over ground beef for my family. Both ground beef and turkey provide protein and a variety of vitamins and minerals. But compared to ground beef, ground turkey tends to be lower in saturated fat.
🧶Craft for this Recipe
Making spaghetti? Set some dry noodles aside so your kids can make this Rainbow Spaghetti Art with Words craft! Creative, educational, messy, awesome.
Other Pasta Dishes
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🍝 Ground Turkey Spaghetti with Hidden Veggies
Equipment
- chopping knife
- peeler
- grater
- mincer
- Measuring tools
- large pot
- medium/large pan
- colander
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoon salt (divided)
- 12 ounce thin spaghetti
- 1 - 1 ½ Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- ¾ cup carrot, peeled & finely grated (~ 1 or 2 medium carrots)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 ounce mushrooms, finely chopped (~ 5 small mushrooms)
- 1 pound ground turkey
- 24 ounce tomato or marinara sauce (your fave)
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
Instructions
- First, fill a large pot with water, add 1 ½ teaspoon of the salt, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add pasta and cook according to instructions on package. Strain pasta when done and return to empty pot.
- Meanwhile, heat a medium-large pan over medium heat and add olive oil. Once heated, add onion, carrot, and garlic, and cook until vegetables are tender (~ 5 mins). Add mushrooms and cook 2 mins more.
- Add turkey to the pan and mix it into the veggies, breaking up the meat chunks with a potato masher or spatula as you go. Cook turkey until no longer pink, ~ 5-7 mins. Stir in the tomato sauce, black pepper and remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Cook sauce on low for 10 mins.
- Pour sauce on top of noodles in pot. Add parmesan and mix everything together until the cheese is completely melted and everything is well incorporated.
Notes
- To plate...serve spaghetti in bowl or on plate. Any steamed veggie or garlic bread are great sides.
- You can play around with the veggie quantities, using more or less of each. Another good veggie to throw in is finely chopped celery.
- We've found that a potato masher helps to break up the ground turkey in the pan.
- This recipe can be made ahead and stored in the freezer for several months. It also tastes great the day after cooking and can be stored in the fridge for 3-5 days.
Nutrition
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. While we are not certified nutritionists, we work with a Wordpress-integrated nutrition API to calculate our recipes' ingredient values.
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Love Love Love!! We made this for the whole family, and the kids devoured it. No leftovers! They have no idea all of the veggies that they just ate!
Yay! That's what we love to hear. Thanks Dan! --Julie