Looking for an easy ground turkey recipe? This one-pot pasta comes together in just 30 minutes and is packed with good-for-you ingredients like spinach, tomatoes, and ground turkey!
Healthy Ground Turkey Pasta
30-minute, one-pot pasta meals recipes that are healthy, tasty, and easy enough to make any night of the week make me look a whole lot just like this → 💃💃💃 because guess what?
You many think that because I’m a food blogger, I’m in the kitchen every day, whipping up recipes so that I never have to think twice about what’s for dinner. But the reality is that most days I’m NOT cooking, and when I suddenly realize that it’s not just 5:00 somewhere…it’s 5:00 RIGHT HERE…I panic. Because if I haven’t taken the time to think ahead and do a bit of meal prep, just like my teenager, I’m left wondering what’s for dinner, too.
See, I’m betting I’m a lot like you. A gal who is always juggling my roles as a spouse, mom, daughter, sister, friend, business owner, mentor, volunteer, and wanderer-of-the-aisles-at-HomeGoods-deal-shopper as I continually work on finding the right balance so that my own needs don’t get lost in the shuffle in this circus act called life.
The saving grace? Simple, healthy, bold-flavored, all-in-one meals like this one-pot pasta that don’t require a bunch of hard-to-find ingredients or have too many steps. And bonus points go to the recipe if I can scavenge my pantry for most of it.
With that said, and I don’t want to sound too boastful, but this 30-minute meal recipe made with penne pasta, ground turkey and spinach totally delivers on each and every count, especially in its kicked up Mexican-spiced flavor.
What’s in This One-Pot Pasta?
This healthy ground turkey recipe comes together quickly and with minimal ingredients. Here’s what goes into this one-pot pasta:
- Canola oil
- Lean ground turkey
- Herbs and spices
- Onion
- Red bell pepper
- Garlic
- Diced tomatoes with green chiles
- Penne pasta
- Chicken broth
- Heavy cream
- Fresh spinach
- Shredded cheese
- Chopped cilantro
How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Pasta
One-pot pastas are one of my weeknight favorites because there’s no extra dishes to wash and everything cooks together, infusing every bite of the meal with flavor. The key to ease with a dish like this is the dried pasta is cooked directly with the rest of the ingredients, absorbing the cooking liquid for even more flavor.
To make, cook this healthy ground turkey recipe in layers, starting with the ground turkey and seasoning mixture first, then add the next layer of flavor with a quick sauté of the fresh veg, then adding the canned tomatoes, spices and dried pasta with the chicken broth to add even more depth of flavor.
A bit of half and half thickens the sauce just a enough without adding a whole lot of fat, and a few handfuls of leafy spinach to add a fresh, healthy vibrance to the pot.
Finally, the whole dish is topped with just enough cheese to make this dinner totally crave-worthy for every eater at the table.
Can I Use Another Green Besides Spinach?
Of course! You could use chopped kale or even arugula if you have those on hand instead.
Tips for Making Ground Turkey Pasta
For this ground turkey recipe, you want to use a good quality chicken broth or make my homemade chicken stock recipe — I freeze it in zippered gallon freezer bags then defrost for quick dinner occasions just like this.
I used Monterey Jack for a melty cheese pull, but any melty cheese like provolone, mozzarella, or even Swiss or cheddar will work here too. Or, if you want to go full Mexican flavor, queso will give a tangier, less melty bite.
Also note that you should choose a high-sided 3- to 4-quart sauté pan or a Dutch oven to make this one-pot pasta in to have enough room for the pasta to expand in as it cooks.
More Pasta Dinner Ideas to Try
- Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Whole Wheat Pasta
- Lighter Penne Alla Vodka
- Spaghetti Alla Carbonara
- Blackened Seafood Pasta
- Shrimp Scampi Pasta
- Baked Sausage and Cheese Rigatoni
- Mom’s Homemade Spaghetti and Meat Sauce
If you make this recipe, please let me know! Bookmark this recipe and leave a comment below, or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.
One-Pot Pasta with Ground Turkey and Spinach
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1 pound lean ground turkey
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt , divided
- 3 teaspoon ground cumin , divided
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper , divided
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 medium onion , diced
- ½ cup red bell pepper , diced
- 3 cloves garlic , minced or pressed
- 1 10- ounce can diced tomatoes and green chilies
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 10 ounces dried penne pasta
- 3 cups chicken broth
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 4 cups fresh baby spinach (2 big handfuls)
- ½ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
- Chopped cilantro , for garnish
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large, high-sided skillet or Dutch oven over medium high heat until it shimmers and then add the ground turkey with 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1 teaspoon 1 teaspoon ground cumin, the oregano, ½ teaspoon black pepper and the crushed red pepper. Break up the turkey with the spices and cook for about 5 minutes.
- Add the onion, red bell pepper, and pressed garlic and cook for another 5 minutes or until the turkey is browned and the veggies soften.
- Add the canned tomatoes with green chiles to the skillet or pot with the rest of the kosher salt, cumin, black pepper, chili powder and stir.
- Add the penne pasta and cover with the chicken broth, bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer, cover and cook until the pasta is just tender, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in the cream and fold in the spinach and cook until the spinach wilts, taste for seasoning and top with the shredded cheese.
- Garnish with the chopped cilantro, sit back and watch the forks fly!
Notes
- Choose a high-sided 3 to 4 quart sauté pan or a Dutch oven to make this recipe in to have enough room for the pasta to expand in as it cooks.
Nutrition
More Weeknight Dinners to Love
I serve this 30-minute pasta dinner recipe with a simple dinner salad, this Chopped Mexican Kale Salad or my super easy Caesar salad. To make the rest of your weeknight dinners easy, here’s some ideas to get dinner on the table with ease.
- 30 Dinners to Make When There’s No Time to Cook
- Linguini and Zucchini Noodles with Shrimp
- 30-Minute Sesame Chicken Noodle Stir-Fry
- One-Pot Skinny Pasta Primavera
- 30-Minute Caprese Chicken
- One-Pot Black Bean Enchilada Pasta
- One-Pot Homemade Sloppy Joe Recipe
- 28 Days of Lighter Pasta Recipes to Make Now
Craving more life balance, less stress, and better health? Check out my Nourished Planner, the daily planner to help create simplicity and under-schedule your life.
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Absolutely love this. I wanna make the recipe times 2 so would I just 2x the cooking time as well the ingredients ?
This dish is delicious! Followed the recipe exactly and man this was good. Everyone loved it. Easy to make and taste great. Thank you
I’m glad you enjoyed Ryan!
I made this this evening. My family and I loved it. This was very good, quick and easy to make. Will make again.
I’m glad you enjoyed!
This was very good and super quick. I had no Rotel in the pantry, so I opted to make this more “Italian”, using a can of petite diced tomatoes, a bit of tomato paste and Italian herbs to complement – topped it with mozzarella and basil. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe (I did cut the salt in half and used a bit less spinach.) My penne took much longer to cook, but not a problem. Will make again, trying it with the Rotel next time.
So like you, I often scramble and head to Pinterest for dinner ideas to see what I can make with what I’ve got. Had no pasta so went with rice and followed everything else in the recipe and it was quite good!
This was so easy and so good!! I subbed about 8oz tomato sauce for the canned tomatoes and about 4oz of cream cheese for the heavy cream. I cut back on a salt a bit too. Definitely adding this to our monthly menu!
So glad you enjoyed!
Unfortunately this dish was so spicy, we could barely eat it. I’m not sure why it’s marketed as a kid friendly dish… most kids don’t like food that makes the mouth burn. I was so excited about this dish, and I wanted to love it. But I wish it would’ve stated that this was for spicy food lovers. I followed the recipe to a T.
Everyone loved it. So GOOD!
I had plans for my ground Turkey and saw this recipe and decided to try this instead. I made some modifications. I used both chicken and vegetable broth, added zucchini, squash, mushrooms and I used wheat penne pasta noodles. It was so delicious I had to make it again a few days later, yesterday. My family loved it too.
Delicious!
Normally ground turkey can be rather bland, but I really liked the bold flavors of this. But I’m giving this 4 stars instead of 5 because I made a few changes that I enjoyed much more than the original recipe sounded. 1) One change was to omit the cream. I don’t see the reason for it. 2) Used 1/2 the cheese. In retrospect, the cheese can be omitted entirely. 3) Instead of cooking the pasta in the one-pan, I par boiled the pasta, and then added it for a few moments. 4) Used only 2/3 cup of chicken broth. I don’t even want to know how soupy this would have been with 3 cups of broth.
This has to be the most delicious thing I’ve ever made. Holy cow this is good! I didn’t have crush tomatoes but I had fresh pico de gallo, used frozen spinach and fat free lactose milk. I added extra seasoning like onion powder and skipped the chili powder. Also added some cream of chicken and flour to thicken the sauce because it was more like soup. My 11 year old picky eater loved it. I will definitely put this in the rotation.
So glad you both enjoyed! :)
Do you think this could be frozen and reheated for meals later?
Hi Abby, sure! Freeze for up to 2 months in individual portions and reheat from frozen.
This is in our TOP 10 favorite dinners. And that’s saying a lot considering I’ve cooked dinner 259 times (but who’s counting!) since March. To make it even more calorie friendly I reduce the pasta to 5 ounces and add 1 large zucchini (1/2-inch diced) along with the spinach and let it sit for about 5 minutes so it still has some bite to it. LOVE this recipe!!