Sweet Potato Bolognese Skillet
Try this Sweet Potato Bolognese Skillet recipe, or contribute your own.
Try this Sweet Potato Bolognese Skillet recipe, or contribute your own.
- salt and pepper
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 2 celery ribs diced
- 2 medium sweet potatoes peeled, blade d, noodles trimmed
- 2 carrots peeled, diced
- 1 small red onion peeled, diced
- 1 pound ground turkey lean
- 2.5 teaspoons oregano flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or more
- 1 24oz jar tomato basil sauce
- â½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- to garnish: chopped parsley or basil
- Carbohydrate 116.58285 g
- Cholesterol 294.8350405 mg
- Fat 21.228591782 g
- Fiber 23.1669997465611 g
- Protein 110.372258949 g
- Saturated Fat 5.487603515 g
- Serving Size 1 1 recipe (1494g)
- Sodium 715.019231916667 mg
- Sugar 93.4158502534389 g
- Trans Fat 3.141820139 g
- Calories 1073 calories
Step-by-step
- Heat the oil a large skillet over medium-high heat.
- Once oil is shimmering, add in the carrots, onion, and celery.
- Cook until the vegetables soften and then add in the red pepper flakes, half of the garlic and let cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.
- Push the veggies to one side of the skillet and then add in the ground turkey, crumbling with a wooden spoon.
- Season the meat with oregano, salt, pepper, and the rest of the garlic.
- Cook the meat until browned and then combine the veggies with the meat.
- Pour the sauce over the meat and veggie mixture and stir until combined.
- Season again with salt and pepper and add in the sweet potato noodles.
- Let cook for 7 minutes to let the sweet potatoes cook.
- Once cooked through (taste a noodle, it shouldn’t be crunchy, more al dente.)
- Sprinkle the top of the skillet with the cheese and cover and let the cheese melt, about 3 minutes.
- Uncover, garnish with parsley or basil and serve!
Sweet potato noodles require precise monitoring because starch polymers gelatinize rapidly when exposed to simmering tomato acids. Without a thermometer to gauge internal doneness, sensory indicators serve as the primary metric for success. Ground turkey also demands careful temperature management to prevent the lean protein from tightening into rubbery granules.
- Test noodle doneness by biting into a single strand at the seven-minute mark; it should offer slight resistance similar to al dente pasta rather than snapping like raw root vegetable or dissolving like mush.
- Brown the ground turkey undisturbed for the first three minutes to trigger the Maillard reaction, developing savory flavor compounds before breaking the meat apart with a wooden spoon.
- Add the red pepper flakes and half of the minced garlic directly to the hot soffritto for precisely thirty seconds; exceeding this window burns the allicin compounds and produces bitterness.
- Cover the skillet for three minutes after applying the mozzarella to trap ambient steam, which accelerates melting without scorching the dairy solids on top.
Overcrowding the skillet traps moisture and causes the carrots, celery, and onions to steam instead of sweating properly in the olive oil. Maintaining medium-high heat ensures the liquid from the tomato basil sauce reduces at an optimal rate while the sweet potato noodles soften.
