Ground Turkey Rice Bowls

Hi, I’m Hane the Dietitian and welcome, where I show you how to make healthy eating. Simple. In this video, I will be showing you my ground turkey rice bowls.

Why You’ll Love This

Now this one is a hearty meal, so if you’re looking for something that’s really filling, but also healthy and balanced at the same time, this is definitely one of those types of meals.

And the nice point about this is that you can make few of the components in advance. For example, you can cook your ground turkey in advance, you can make your rice in advance to make it really easy for you to pull this together on a weeknight without having to spend too much time on it.

You can easily make a big batch of rice, a big batch of ground turkey for probably less than the amount that you would be spending if you were to get this at a restaurant. So one, you can make a much bigger bulk so that you have not only dinner but leftover for lunch the next day or even for a few days.

And number two, you can make this a lot more balanced and healthy at home by keeping your rice portion sizes smaller, aiming for about a quarter of that plate, making sure you get plenty of protein in there at least a quarter of your plate to be protein and then having your plate to be veggies to make this a really filling but healthy meal.

Ingredients

For the Tomato Rice

• four large tomatoes (on the vine)
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• frozen crushed garlic cubes: four cubes
• brown jasmine rice: two cups
• water: three cups

For the Ground Turkey

• olive oil
• diced onions: 10 ounce (about one onion)
• crushed garlic: eight cubes
• all natural fresh ground turkey: three and a half pounds
• organic no salt seasoning
• everything seasoning
• garlic powder
• chopped onions (flakes)
• smoked paprika
• salt
• black pepper

For the Seasoned Chickpeas

• can of chickpeas
• olive oil
• lemon juice: juice of about half a lemon
• salt
• black pepper

For Assembling and Toppings

• shredded lettuce (pre shredded iceberg lettuce)
• tziki (vegan one for myself as a lactose free option)

Instructions

1. Let’s start by making the tomato rice.
2. Dice four large tomatoes pretty small and make sure you retain all of that tomato juice.
3. Add some olive oil into a hot pot.
4. Add our tomatoes to this hot oil to cook up the tomatoes a little bit and make it almost like a tomato sauce.
5. Salt and pepper the tomatoes.
6. Mix that together.
7. Add four cubes of frozen crushed garlic cubes to that mixture.
8. Let those garlic cubes melt in there.
9. Add two cups of brown jasmine rice into the tomatoes.
10. Mix that together and cook it up for about one to two minutes so that tomato flavor starts getting absorbed into the rice.
11. Add in three cups of water.
12. Give that a nice mix together.
13. Cover with lid and cook it according to the instructions.
14. Now let’s show you how I cooked up this ground turkey.
15. Start out with some olive oil into a hot pan.
16. Add 10 ounce of diced onions into that and cook that for about one to two minutes until it starts becoming a little translucent.
17. Add eight cubes of crushed garlic into that.
18. Mix that and cook that for one to two minutes.
19. Add three and a half pounds of all natural fresh ground turkey.
20. Go in with your seasonings: organic no salt seasoning, everything seasoning, garlic powder, chopped onions, smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper.
21. Give that a mix together and break it up.
22. Cook this until it’s no longer pink and it’s absorbed all those juices.
23. To make the seasoned chickpeas, start with a can of chickpeas.
24. Add that to a strainer and really wash and rinse that until all the bubbles are gone.
25. Put your chickpeas in the bowl once they’ve been rinsed and drained.
26. Season it by adding in some olive oil, juice of about half a lemon, salt, and black pepper.
27. To build our rice bowl, start by adding in that rice to the bottom.
28. Add a pretty heaping portion of ground turkey on top of the rice.
29. Add the seasoned chickpeas on top once everything has been mixed around.
30. Add shredded lettuce.
31. Dollop the tziki on top.
32. Give that a mix together.

Cooking Tips

Now if you have juicy tomatoes, stop right here, I added in another half cup which was too much water and it became a little bit too mushy so three cups of water is good for two cups of rice if you have really juicy tomatoes, that’s what I should have done.

This also helps lower the glycemic index of rice as well to cook in advance and start in the fridge.

Ground turkey can be pretty not as flavorful.

I don’t like to go too heavy on the paprika because then it really tastes like paprika.

I try to keep it low sodium as much as possible.

This is probably the hardest part about cooking ground meat is getting all those spices to mix in and then breaking it up.

If you have a big pan this works even better because then there’s more surface area.

Take your time go through it thoroughly to make sure you get all the bubbles out to remove the canning liquid.

I personally prefer it more on the lemony side. You can gauge it based on whatever you prefer.

You’ll see that olive oil drizzle at the bottom you can add that to your bowl too.

I do like a decent amount of tziki and I’m using the vegan one for myself as a lactose free option to help prevent some bloating that comes with regular dairy.

As long as you’re making your rice and turkey in advance, putting this together on a week night is super easy to do.

Serving Suggestions

You can certainly change up the ingredients. You can change up the rice. It doesn’t have to be tomato rice. You can do plain rice. You can do a multi grain rice. You can do a mix with quinoa even or cauliflower rice to really change up the rice portion. You can certainly change up the protein too. It doesn’t have to be ground turkey. You can do chicken or even fish instead. And then of course you can change up the veggies that are going in there too. But I do recommend having some sort of a leafy green in there to really make this almost like a rice salad type of a meal so that you get some leafy greens along with the other veggies that you’re adding in.

Thank you so much for watching. I hope this video helps give you a good idea about how you can make rice bowls at home. Thank you again so much and I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye bye.