Korean-Inspired Ground Turkey
This easy Korean-Inspired Ground Turkey is a little sweet, a little savory, a little spicy, and full of delicious flavor! I’ve mostly seen similar recipes use ground beef, but I decided to lighten it up a bit by using lean ground turkey breast and less sugar. I think ground chicken breast would also be great, it’s just harder to find at my local grocery store right now. My husband snuck by and grabbed a spoonful of this while the turkey was cooling and blew his cover by exclaiming “oh wow, this is really tasty,” so I’ll call that a pretty rave review. I almost always have all the ingredients for this dish on hand, and it comes together in about 20 minutes making it a perfect weeknight meal. Better yet, a filling serving of this Korean-Inspired Ground Turkey is just 207 calories or 4 WW Points. To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!
This recipe makes 4 servings, and I measured them out in two ways so that you can choose your preferred method. I weighed the finished dish and it came in at just over a pound, so each serving would be around 4 ounces weighed. I also measured the finished turkey and it came out to 3 cups, so each serving would be ¾ cup.
I like to serve this Korean-Inspired Ground Turkey over brown or white rice (as pictured) or with cooked vegetables, but it’s also great in lettuce wraps! My favorite lettuce to use for lettuce wraps is Boston/Bibb lettuce because the leaves are the perfect size and make great cups, but you can use whatever lettuce you prefer. When I east this dish as lettuce wraps I usually split my ¾ cup serving into three lettuce wraps. Filled with ¼ cup filling each. You can also of course add vegetables like cabbage, carrots, zucchini, or bell peppers.
Looking for more tasty, lightened up Asian-inspired recipes? Check out my Chicken Lo Mein, Vegetable Fried Rice, Teriyaki Steak Lettuce Wraps, Thai Chicken Chopped Salad, Chicken Teriyaki Stir Fry, Asian Chicken Wonton Cups, Thai Turkey with Carrot Noodles, Cashew and Basil Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Teriyaki Chicken and Rice Casserole, Thai Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce, and many more in the Asian category of my recipe index!
Korean-Inspired Ground Turkey
Ingredients
- ¼ cup low sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 lb uncooked 99% lean ground turkey breast, or ground chicken breast
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 teaspoons sesame seeds
- 2 scallions, greens only, sliced
Instructions
- Combine the soy sauce, brown sugar, cornstarch, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, and black pepper in a bowl and stir to mix. Set aside.
- Add the sesame oil to a large saute pan or skillet and bring over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the ground turkey and stir to break them up and coat them in the oil. Cook the ground turkey for about 2 minutes, breaking up with a spoon, until it starts to break into chunks and “brown.” Add the chopped onion and stir together. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for another 4 minutes or so until the turkey is cooked through and broken into small chunks and the onions are softened. Add the garlic and stir together. Cook for another 30-60 seconds.
- Stir the sauce from step one and add it to the pan. Stir to coat the meat and reduce the heat to med-low. Cook for another 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and top with sesame seeds and sliced scallions before serving.
Notes
207 calories, 12 g carbs, 7 g sugars, 5 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 28 g protein, 1 g fiber (from myfitnesspal.com) MYWW SMARTPOINTS PER (3/4 cup or 4 oz) SERVING: (SP calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com) Green: 5 SmartPoints/ Blue: 3 SmartPoints/ Purple: 3 SmartPoints Weight Watchers Points Plus:
5 per (3/4 cup or 4 oz) serving (PP calculated using a Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition info below) Adapted from Unicorns in the Kitchen and Crunchy Creamy Sweet