How To Cook Ground Turkey

5 from 1 vote

Once you know the basics of cooking ground turkey you'll have no trouble substituting it for all kinds of other recipes.

Prep Time2

Cook Time6

Total Time8

Course: main

Cuisine: American

Keyword: how to cook ground turkey

Servings: servings

Calories: 175kcal

Cost: $5

In a frying pan set over medium heat on the stove top, add oil to the pan if your ground turkey is very low fat. Use your fingers to break up and pull off pieces of the ground turkey chunk and put into the pan.
Once the ground turkey is all added to the pan, use a potato masher to mash and break up the ground turkey into fine and small pieces. Repeat this as the ground turkey cooks. Add the salt, pepper, garlic and onion powders. Continue to stir frequently until the meat has turned all brown.
Turn off the heat and proceed with whatever recipe you plan to use finely crumbled ground turkey for.

Turkey is very lean and you may not have any fat to drain, don't worry about this.
Turkey will need more seasoning that beef, usually.
Allow the meat to cook and sear well before trying to flip or turn. When the meat is completely seared, it will release from the pan, but before that, it will stick and it makes trying to brown the meat a bit nightmarish.
If you do not have a potato mashing tool, use a meat pounder or wash a can of soup very well and then use that instead.
Add salt to your ground meat before using it in your recipe, this will lend a lot of flavor to your recipe.