The ingredient this week is ground turkey. Love ground turkey... it's leaner and I feel tastier than ground beef and it is better for you. You can leave it as is or flav it up! I like to use ground turkey instead of beef in a lot of instances, I'm cooking for guys, so they "like the beef" (low growl added for effect.) But I always put turkey in instead of beef or with a combo of beef for many recipes. We will explore turkey burgers/turkey chili (one of my very favorites), ground turkey salad and more of my favorite recipes.
Today I want to chat about how and where to buy ground turkey and what to watch for on the label to get the most fit-trition out of the meat you buy.
Personally I don't buy ground turkey at the grocery store, I always make a "meat trip" out to Fresh Market to stock up on chicken breast and anything else that I might see that I like.
If you can't got to Fresh Market, just make sure to look for additives, like sodium, in your ground turkey and look for the lowest percentage of fat. You can usually find 99% fat free ground turkey, but again, check for additives, preservatives. Harris Teeter has a really good "all natural" 99% fat free ground turkey which has 3 g of fat per pound.
When you buy turkey with so little fat it may be very dry when cooked. You can add 1 tbsp per 4 ounces or so of olive oil to your ground turkey. I sometimes even add... yes this is bad... 2 Tbsp of sweet italian sausage (Fresh Market's of course...lalala). The italian sausage give the turkey a nice spicey taste and softens up the ground turkey as well. I don't do this all the time, but I do on occasion, depends on what I'm using the turkey for. Chilie, turkey salad. Of course it is best not to add the sausage. (blah). Oh well, sometimes I splurge for flava!! : )
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