Healthy Turkey Seekh Kebabs with Cucumber Mint Yogurt Sauce

This dish has become a STAPLE at our house for weeknight meals because:

• It’s super healthy (high protein/low fat)
• Very tasty
• Easy to make in big batches and freeze
• Easy for Colin to cook up when I’m not destroying the kitchen with my latest experiments

The original recipe is from Azmina of Lawyer Loves Lunch, and through the many batches I’ve made on weekends before I’m gone for work travel all week, I’ve tweaked and played with some of the seasonings.

It’s a very forgiving recipe that you can stand up to different substitutions of spices. Feel free to experiment if you are running out of cumin (like I did last night).  I’d also recommend going with a lighter ground turkey. I’ve used 90/10 and 85/15. I find the 85/15 a bit wetter and harder to form into kebabs w/out adding breadcrumbs, and I’d rather not have to add extra filler.

I also like to serve the kebabs with a cool, refreshing cucumber mint yogurt sauce.

For you workout freaks, this is a GREAT healthy meal with 20 g protein per serving and 9 g fat. (source)

Servings: 4-5 servings of about 4 kebabs each

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground turkey (90/10 is best, but others work as well)
• 1 medium onion (any kind!)
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2-3 inch piece of ginger
• 1 jalepeno (or sub1 tsp red pepper flakes)
• 4 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• zest of 1 lemon
• A good handful of cilantro (I’ve also subbed green onions and/or basil)

Steps:

1. Prep your ingredients and place in a large mixing bowl:

• Finely dice the onion.  If you think it might not be fine enough, go ahead and give it another chop. The finer the better  so as not to have huge onion chunks in your kebabs.
• Mince the garlic and jalepeno
• Grate or mince the ginger
• Zest the lemon
• chop up the cilantro

 

2. Add the ground turkey and the spices. Mix all together with your hands. Get dirty!

3. Now, time to test your flavor. A quick trick my mom showed me! Grab a ziplock bag or piece of plastic wrap. Grab a lil 1/2 teaspoon or so of the meat mixture and place it inside the bag/wrap up in plastic. Place in the microwave for 10-15 seconds until cooked through. Carefully remove from the plastic and take a taste. Adjust the seasoning to your taste.

4. Take some plates and spray with nonstick spray.Take a large spoon and scoop about 2 teaspoonfuls of meat mixture and use your hands and the spoon to shape into oblong kebab shapes. Place each kebab onto the plate and continue until you run out of meat!

These were made with 85/15 turkey. Kinday mushy but still tasty when cooked.

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I preferred the texture of these, make with 90/10 turkey. Bit firmer.

5. Now, you can either cook the kebabs right away, or freeze them. If cooking, you can pan fry about 8-10 minutes or broil in the oven at 350 about 8-10 minutes.  If freezing, place the plates directly in the freezer for about 20 min or so. Take them out when they have solidified a bit and pop them into ziplock bags for storage.

Serve them up on top of a salad, steamed veggies, or a starch. Don’t forget the cucumber mint yogurt sauce for an extra flavor party in your mouth!