Healthy Parmesan Vegetable Turkey Spaghetti is filled with hidden veggies, including grated zucchini, carrots, mushrooms and onions along with lean ground turkey. It is served over whole grain pasta for a light version of your favorite comfort food!
Healthy Parmesan Vegetable Turkey Spaghetti
Sometimes we want to indulge in some of our favorite comfort foods, but aren’t looking for all the fat and calories that traditionally come with them. With the weather quickly cooling off in the Midwest, spaghetti is one of those recipes that is perfect to warm you up after a cold day. The best way to lighten up spaghetti is by incorporating lots of vegetables to bulk it up with the good stuff. For the Healthy Parmesan Vegetable Turkey Spaghetti, I added in grated zucchini, carrots, mushrooms and onion. They not only bulk it up, they also add great flavor!
To go along with the vegetables I browned some lean ground turkey for added protein. If you don’t already own a Hamburger Meat Chopper, I highly recommend you get one! I am always hesitant to add another gadget to my drawer, but this is one of my absolute favorites. It makes such light work of chopping up ground meat.
This dish calls for a LOT of grated vegetables. If you have a food processor or stand mixer with a grater attachment, I highly recommend you whip it out. If not, look at the bright side, it will be a nice arm workout. 😉
To complete the healthy dish, we are serving our vegetable and turkey marinara over whole grain spaghetti. Now you might be thinking at this point that we have made too many healthy swaps in the recipe for your family to enjoy it. Not true at all! I served this to my husband and parents who are quite enjoy their full fat version of spaghetti and they liked it. My Mom commented that she didn’t even notice all the vegetables in the sauce.
We can’t forget about flavor even though we aiming to make a healthy recipe. That’s why you will want to add in the Parmesan. This will add a nice salty and nutty flavor to the otherwise super lean pasta sauce. You can certainly skip it, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
If you aren’t fans of turkey, or it’s not readily available to you, extra lean ground beef would be a great option as well. I actually used Jennie-O’s Italian Seasoned Lean Ground Turkey for added flavor. 
This makes a HUGE batch which is perfect for meal prep. I like to keep the sauce and pasta separated when I store them refrigerate them, because my husband and I prefer different pasta to sauce ratios. If you are just wanting a single meal from this recipe, feel free to halve the recipe. I just feel like for the work that it takes to shred the vegetables and clean the food processor, I’d rather make a really big batch.
Healthy Parmesan Vegetable Turkey Spaghetti
Ingredients
- 1 lb. lean ground turkey Italian seasoned preferred
- 1 1/2 tsp. seasoning salt
- 1 Tbsp. chopped garlic
- 2 large carrots
- 2 large zucchini
- 8 oz. mushrooms cleaned and de-stemmed
- 1 large onion peeled
- 2 24oz jars spaghetti sauce
- 16 oz. whole wheat spaghetti
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- In a food processor with a shredder attachment, shred the carrots, zucchini, mushrooms and onion. In an extra deep skillet, add 1 Tbsp. olive oil and ground turkey. Cook over high heat chopping up into small crumbles until there is no longer any pink.
- Add the shredded vegetables to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the jars of pasta sauce and stir until well mixed. Turn down to low, cover and simmer.
- Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti according to package directions. Drain and toss with 2 Tbsp. olive oil.
- Serve the turkey sauce over spaghetti noodles and garnish with Parmesan cheese.
More healthy turkey recipes!
Turkey Egg Roll Bowl with Creamy Sriracha
Turkey Thai Peanut Lettuce Wraps
This is such a great idea to use vegetables in the sauce! I’ve got a bunch of squash and carrots right now that I need to use! This is the perfect solution!
YES!! Spaghetti is a great way to sneak in extra veggies and the kids don’t even notice!!
Great recipe so easy to do and customize. I added habanero for extra kick
The sauce is so savory and full of flavor – five stars here!!!
I’m always trying to sneak vegetables in my kids dinners. This is perfect for that!
I love my hamburger chopper too! Don’t know how I lived without it. I’m sure I’m going to love this recipe too!