I seriously never get tired of super easy stir-fry dinners! I mean, what’s not to love? With only a few ingredients, you can work in a TON of vegetables, and they’re super fast! Using ground meat makes them even easier because there’s no cutting or slicing raw meat (not a fan of this task). This Ground Turkey Stir Fry is especially great because it’s so versatile. Use whatever vegetables you have on hand, make it spicy or mild, and serve it with rice, noodles, or with shredded cabbage for a low-carb option. Scroll down for more deets on those options!
This Ground Turkey Stir Fry is another meal inspired by those “macro-friendly” meal delivery services that deliver individual, ready-to-reheat meals to your door. While those services are super convenient, they’re also super expensive and I know I can make similar meals at home for a fraction of the price. :) You can easily adjust the macros in this meal by increasing, decreasing, or eliminating any of these elements: turkey, vegetables, rice, or nuts. Unfortunately, I don’t have the specific macronutrient information for this meal, and you can read why in my FAQs.
Customize your Ground Turkey Stir Fry
- Reduce the recipe cost by increasing the vegetables and decreasing the amount of ground turkey
- Use ground beef, pork, chicken, or crumbled tofu or tempeh in place of the ground turkey
- Other vegetable options: mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts, snap peas, green beans, water chestnuts
- Top with cashews or sesame seeds in place of the peanuts
- Make it spicy by stirring a tablespoon (or TWO 🔥) of sriracha or chili garlic sauce into the stir-fry sauce
- Add fresh some freshly grated ginger to the stir-fry sauce for extra zing
- Add cooked noodles to the stir fry at the end instead of serving over rice
- Add a bag of coleslaw mix to the stir fry to bulk it up without adding carbs, similar to my Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry, instead of serving it with rice or noodles.
How to Store Ground Turkey Stir Fry
This recipe works great for meal prep, but I suggest only storing in the refrigerator rather than the freezer. Freezing will cause the vegetables to soften further and seep more water. This dish will stay good in the refrigerator for about four days.
Ground Turkey Stir Fry
Servings 5 (about 1 cup stir fry, 1/2 cup rice)Ingredients
Stir Fry Sauce
- 1/4 cup soy sauce ($0.24)
- 1/2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil ($0.16)
- 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar ($0.02)
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes (optional) ($0.02)
- 1 Tbsp water ($0.00)
Stir Fry
- 2 bell peppers ($2.00)
- 4 green onions ($0.22)
- 2 oz. spinach (two large handfuls, or 1/4 of an 8oz. bag) ($0.30)
- 2 Tbsp cooking oil of choice ($0.08)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 19 oz. ground turkey* ($3.49)
For Serving
- 1/4 cup chopped peanuts ($0.12)
- 2.5 cups cooked brown rice ($0.60)
Instructions
- Make the stir fry sauce by stirring together the soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, brown sugar, red pepper, and water until the sugar is dissolved. Set the sauce aside.
- Dice the bell peppers and slice the green onions.
- Heat the cooking oil in a very large skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add the ground turkey and minced garlic. Stir and cook until the turkey is cooked through and no water is left pooling on the bottom of the skillet (8-10 minutes).
- Once the turkey is cooked and the moisture has evaporated, add the bell pepper and green onions to the skillet. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes more, then add the spinach and continue to cook just until it is about half wilted (1-2 minutes).
- Pour the stir fry sauce into the skillet. Continue to stir and cook the turkey and vegetables until everything is coated in sauce and the spinach is fully wilted (about 2 minutes more).
- Serve about 1 cup of the stir fry mixture with 1/2 cup rice and a sprinkle of chopped peanuts over top.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
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Scroll down for the step by step photos!
How to Make Ground Turkey Stir Fry – Step by Step Photos
First, make the stir-fry sauce so it’s ready to go. Stir together 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil, 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and 1 Tbsp water. Stir until the brown sugar is dissolved. BTW, I’ve really grown to love Whole Foods’ 365 brand Shoyu soy sauce. It’s very affordable and has great *flavor*, rather than just being salty.
Next prepare the vegetables. Dice two bell peppers (I used red and yellow for more color), and slice four green onions. I am also using about 2 oz. fresh spinach (2 large handfuls or about 1/4 of an 8oz. bag). No preparation is needed for the spinach.
Add 2 Tbsp of your favorite cooking oil to a large skillet and heat over medium. Once hot, add 19oz. ground turkey and 2 minced cloves of garlic. Stir and cook until the turkey is cooked through and all of the moisture has evaporated out of the skillet. Soupy stir fry is not good. :)
Add the diced bell peppers and green onions to the skillet. Continue to stir and cook just until they begin to soften (about 2 minutes). Don’t let them cook too much because they will continue to cook over the next few minutes as more ingredients are added. Add the spinach to the skillet and cook for 1-2 minutes more, or until the spinach is about half wilted, like in the photo.
Finally, pour in the stir-fry sauce. If your brown sugar wasn’t completely dissolved and some remain on the bottom of the bowl, make sure to scrape that into the skillet. Stir and cook everything for 1-2 minutes more, or until everything is coated in sauce and heated through.
And that’s it! It’s literally that easy.
Serve about 1 cup of the ground turkey stir fry with 1/2 cup cooked rice and some chopped peanuts over top. Enjoy!
Do you think frozen chopped spinach would work okay with this recipe? If not, I think I’ll just leave the spinach out when I make it later in the week. Thanks.
Yep, in a pinch I would use frozen for this. :)
This looks yummy! Can I swap the soy sauce with coconut aminos? If so, should I exclude the brown sugar?
I know a lot of people use coconut aminos as a sub for soy sauce, but unfortunately I’ve never tried it myself so I’m not sure if any other adjustments would need to be made.
Super yummy and colorful. I threw in some fresh basil and fish sauce for a slight Thai inflection. I might put a little corn starch in the sauce next time for a thicker consistency, or not. It’s a great base to play around with. Thank you for so much inspiration!
Made this recipe for tonight’s dinner. My husband and I just finished eating and I must say, it was so delicious I had to comment ASAP.
I did customize your recipe by adding cubed Zucchini, red onions, broccoli and a full tablespoon of brown sugar. Had to omit the spinach because I only had enough for my salad tomorrow.
My husband had his over jasmine rice and I had mine over raw, shredded cabbage ( so crunchy and delicious) both versions are fantastic.
Tomorrow I will try your pasta recipe and will let you know 😊
Thank you for sharing!!!
Laura
This is delicious! Will definitely be a staple in my house!
One of the best meal prep recipes on this site. Been looking for meals that could be prepped in single containers vs divided containers. Great flavor and microwaves evenly instead of being cold or hot in spots. Used the Thai Jasmine rice I had, but was still a great taste. Highly recommend, especially for beginners.
Loved this recipe!!! We added some sriracha and asparagus, and used some cauliflower rice as a side! Kept in the fridge for four days for my lunch for the week! Thank you so much, Beth!
Easy and delicious recipe! Made this to get through a busy week. Only change I made was switching up the brown rice for quinoa. Might add some sriracha to switch it up!
Thank you for your blog. Helped me get back into cooking.
This was delicious! I added 2 heads of broccoli and therefore doubled the sauce recipe. It was easy and quick and so good! Can’t wait to eat the leftovers for lunch!
I loved all the veggies, but it was kind of low on the flavor side.
Where do you shop that your items are so cheap? For example colored bell peppers are $3.99 lb, bag of spinach $3.00, green onion $.99 for 4-5, would love to find cheaper sources!! Thanks.
Aldi! It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me! :)
Made this recipe tonight and it was great! It was so simple and easy, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting that much. I didn’t have spinach so I used red and green cabbage that I had on hand. I added chili sauce, fresh garlic and cornstarch to the stir fry sauce, and made a little extra. Will definitely make again, it would be good with pretty much any combo of vegetables. Thanks for a great recipe!
So easy to make and so tasty! I added sriracha to it to add spice as you suggested, and even my veggie-hating picky 6-year-old gobbled it up and was asking for 2nds and 3rds! Thanks for the recipe!
This was excellent! Prepared as directed. Kids loved as is. Parents added sambal and Siracha for more heat. Very successful, all enjoyed and very quick to make for dinner when I walked in the door.
Loved this! Swapped with turkey for tofu and added a crown of broccoli.
My spouse and I made this tonight. EXCELLENT Friday night meal. We’re both in graduate school and have been living strictly off the recipes ideas on your website for the past 2.5 years to stay healthy on our tight budget… always get excited to try your new recipes and this one was definitely one of our favorites to date! Thanks so much for all you do!
I’ve been using Gochujang in my stir fry sauces lately. It takes a bit more effort to incorporate due to how thick the paste is but it’s super good and adds such a unique, funky flavor.
I love recipes like this that allow us to mix and match ingredients, plus using ground meat for stirfry is one of my favorite shortcuts as well. I made this last night, just swapping Gochujang in place of Sriracha in the sauce (though full disclosure I used some Sriracha anyway since I’m a heat fiend) and a couple bricks of ramen noodles instead of rice.