Try this Bikini Bolognese recipe, or contribute your own.
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup chicken broth
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 lb ground turkey
- shaved parmesan cheese for garnish
- 2 medium cloves of garlic minced
- 2-2.5 large zucchinis blade c
- 1/2 of 1 celery stalk diced
- 3/4 tbsp tomato paste (about 3 tsp)
- 1/3 cup chopped basil
- 1 tbsp oregano flakes
- 1/2 medium red onion chopped (a little more than 1/3 of a cup
- 1/2 of 1 whole carrot diced
- 1 tsp red hot pepper flakes (or more if you like it spic
- 1 14 oz can of crushed tomatoes (san marzano is the best!)
- Carbohydrate 1.15371666916568 g
- Cholesterol 188.708760125 mg
- Fat 29.9091621140559 g
- Fiber 0.755066658534891 g
- Protein 53.5943647382246 g
- Saturated Fat 8.19476587903913 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (279g)
- Sodium 224.127451209631 mg
- Sugar 0.39865001063079 g
- Trans Fat 2.6210040348654 g
- Calories 501 calories
Step-by-step
- Add your carrots and celery to a food processor and pulse until chopped finely. There can still be chunks, just no big ones. The end mixture should be somewhere in between chunky and pureed.
- Put a large skillet over medium heat and add in the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Once oil heats, add in garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add in red pepper flakes, cook for 30 seconds and then add in the onions. Cook onions for 1-2 minutes or until they begin to soften. Add in carrot/celery mixture and cook for 1 minute.
- Push the veggie mixture to the side and add in the ground turkey, crumbling as you add. Crumble with a spatula or wooden spoon. Add a pinch of the oregano flakes. Cook turkey until the meat is no longer pink.
- Combine the veggies with the turkey and season with another pinch of oregano flakes. Add in the chicken broth and cook until reduced (water evaporates).
- Add in the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and season generously with salt and pepper. Add in the remaining oregano flakes. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and let simmer for 15 minutes. 5 minutes before the sauce is reduced, add in the basil.
- After 15 minutes, add in the zucchini pasta and mix thoroughly to combine. Plate onto dishes and garnish with Parmesan cheese.
Replacing traditional wheat pasta with spiraled zucchini completely alters the moisture dynamics of a classic meat sauce, demanding careful attention to evaporation rates so the dish remains thick rather than watery. Understanding how ground turkey behaves in a skillet compared to higher-fat beef prevents common texture pitfalls, ensuring a flavorful result without heavy grease. Equipment-wise, a standard food processor speeds up vegetable prep, though a sharp chef knife and a cutting board suffice if you lack motorized gadgets. Cooking is fundamentally applied chemistry, where proper heat control transforms raw ingredients into a cohesive sauce.
Building the Aromatic Base and Browning the Meat
Starting with olive oil in a skillet over medium heat sets up the primary fat medium that carries fat-soluble compounds from the garlic and red pepper flakes. Cooking minced garlic for exactly 30 seconds releases volatile sulfur compounds into the oil without burning them into bitterness. Introducing finely pulsed carrots and celery adds natural sugars that caramelize slightly when touching the hot pan surface. Pushing these aromatics aside creates bare metal space to brown the ground turkey, initiating the Maillard reaction that develops deep savory notes. Breaking the meat apart with a wooden spoon increases surface area contact, allowing moisture inside the turkey cells to escape and evaporate fully before the tomato products enter the pan.Simmering and Integrating the Zucchini Noodles
Deglazing the skillet with chicken broth dissolves the browned fond stuck to the pan bottom, incorporating those concentrated flavor molecules directly into the sauce. Crushed tomatoes provide acidity and water content, which must simmer for 15 minutes to concentrate the sugars and soften the overall profile. Adding chopped basil five minutes before the end of the simmer preserves the delicate volatile oils that heat otherwise destroys over long cooking times. Finally, tossing raw zucchini noodles into the hot sauce for the last stage utilizes residual heat to soften the vegetables slightly while releasing minimal excess water, keeping the final presentation vibrant and properly emulsified.
