Turkey Bolognese and Whole Wheat Penne

For my newest undertaking I wanted to try to take normal recipes and cut the calories to make healthier alternatives that still taste good.  I read that it was going to be cooler today (hah, only 85 degrees outside instead of 97) so I decided to make bolognese from scratch.  This recipe is based off of one by Giada De Laurentiis with some of my own additions.  I have made this recipe using ground beef mixed with ground pork before and it was delicious.  Now I am substituting the ground meat mix with lean ground turkey and eliminating the butter, olive oil, and salt as much as possible.  Hope you all enjoy!

First, begin with one medium yellow onion, quartered, three garlic cloves whole, seven stalks of celery, and one whole red bell pepper.  Cut all of the vegetables small enough to put in a food processor and pulse until the vegetables are somewhat of a pastey consistency.  If you find that the food processor isn't working very well, add a tablespoon or two of low sodium chicken stock to the processor.  Once you have all the vegetables processed, cut the whole tomatoes into quarters and process in the same manner.

Once you put all of the vegetables and tomatoes through the food processor it will look something like this.  Put everything in a deep sauce pan and turn the heat on to medium.  It may look a little strange but the sauce base already smells good.  

While the base is heating up, it's time to put the rest of the sauce ingredients in.  To the vegetables in the saucepan add a large can of crushed tomatoes, a small can of tomato paste, a couple squeezes of ketchup, 1/4 cup of worchestershire sauce, and 1/4 cup of white vinegar.  After mixing these all in, add italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste.  This part is subjective based on personal taste.  I prefer a more garlicky, less sweet sauce.  In an attempt to limit the amount of salt I used, I added more worchestershire and less ketchup.

Here is the sauce base with everything added except the meat.  Set this mixture to simmer while you prepare the meat.

While the red sauce is simmering, put your ground turkey in a non-stick pan that has been heated up to medium high.  Normally I would brown the meat using olive oil or butter but the non-stick pan eliminates the need for these.  While browning the meat be sure to season using fresh ground pepper and salt.  Drain any excess liquid/fat out of the pan.  Once completely cooked through, add the meat to the red sauce and cover and simmer for one and a half hours.

Here is the final product.  I used a high quality whole grain penne (Barilla brand at Safeway) and boiled it up in about ten minutes.  This recipe yields about a half gallon of sauce so I had a lot left over.  I divided the leftover sauce into 2 cup portions and put in plastic ziploc bags to put in the freezer. Whenever you want to use the sauce you can just microwave or boil the bags in water to reheat.  I personally think the leftover sauce tastes better than when it's fresh :)


Next time I make this sauce I want to add 1/2 cup of cabernet or syrah.  The chemical composition of the wine reacts with the chemical composition of the tomatoes in the sauce to release flavor components that you wouldn't normally taste.  I love adding wine to red spaghetti sauce.


Enjoy!