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The delicious, sweet teriyaki sauce and the (kind of) hidden veggies in this Teriyaki Turkey Rice Bowl makes this one of those healthy ground turkey recipes that your whole family will love!
We love quick and easy Asian inspired recipes, and have quite a few here on the site! Some of our favorites are included in our monthly dinner rotation, like Egg Fried Rice and Crockpot Orange Chicken.
I love Asian inspired dishes, and Teriyaki is a family favorite. The sweet and savory richness of the sauce really compliments the flavors of the turkey. Plus it’s loaded with veggies, which means my kids are eating them! You can pair this with steamed rice or noodles, or even wrap it up in a Lettuce Wrap.
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Ground Turkey Teriyaki Rice Bowls
Ground turkey recipes are always a winner in our house, like Turkey, Kale and Rice Soup, Turkey Taco Stuffed Shells and Spicy Turkey Meatloaf. These Teriyaki Turkey Rice Bowls always top the list of favorites.
My kids are not fans of vegetables. Well, quite frankly that is an understatement. They hate them. So I have had to get clever with how I add veggies to our meals.
The ground turkey is juicy and the teriyaki sauce is sweet and flavorful. Add in all the wonderful veggies and you’ve got a perfectly complete meal that makes great leftovers.
Why We Love This Recipe
- It’s a quick and easy, a healthy alternative to ground beef, and an easy substitution in tons of recipes like chili and spaghetti sauce.
- We include lots of veggies and dice them up small so it’s very kid friendly and a great way to get kids to actually enjoy eating their vegetables.
- You can easily customize this recipe to include your favorite veggies or add a different base like rice or noodles.
How to Cook Ground Turkey
Ground turkey is a light, bright pink color when it’s raw or uncooked. As it cooks the color will change from pink to a light brown color. Seasoning is important, since it has a very mild flavor that takes on whatever flavors you add. It’s delicious with just a little garlic, onion and salt added but you can also add it to chili, spaghetti, tacos and more by changing the seasoning.
How to Make Teriyaki Turkey Rice Bowls
- Cook the ground turkey. After cooking the meat with some onions and garlic, grate few carrots and chop some broccoli very fine, and toss them in with the meat. This gave the illusion that there weren’t very many vegetables in there, but they couldn’t avoid what they couldn’t see! *Note – if you are serving this as a rice bowl, you’ll want to start cooking the rice before you start cooking the meat.
- Make the teriyaki sauce. The teriyaki sauce is made from scratch and is incredibly easy. Some readers have commented on the amount of sugar in the sauce, and you can see in the recipe notes that you can reduce to your liking. Teriyaki sauce is typically sweet on it’s own, but you can adjust the levels based on your needs. It will still taste great!
- Assemble the rice bowls. The teriyaki sauce is combined with the meat and veggies and simmered for a few minutes to let the flavors blend and get all happy. Then scoop it on top of white or brown rice, noodles, into lettuce cups or even flour tortillas for some Asian-Mexican fusion!
How to Serve
Sprinkle some sliced green onions and sesame seeds on top before serving. It’s a pretty garnish and add a little flavor, too.
My kids love to eat their rice bowl with chopsticks. If you don’t have any, you can find them here, or try these adorable training chopsticks for kids.
How to Store Leftovers
- Refrigerating leftovers: This dish will keep for 3-4 days in the fridge if properly stored in an airtight container. Reheat in the microwave or on the stove.
- To freeze, allow to cool completely, then pour into a freezer bag or airtight container. Freeze for up to 6 months. Thaw in the fridge and reheat as described above. Freeze rice or noodles separately from the meat.
Recipe Variations
Feel free to customize this recipe to fit your own personal tastes. Use cut up veggies and sauté or steam them before adding them to the turkey and sauce.
Some other veggie options:
- Bell peppers
- Snow peas
- Water chestnuts
- Bok choy
- Bean sprouts
- Zucchini
- Corn
- Cauliflower
- Water chestnuts
I have received lots of comments over the years on how much people love this recipe, but also how they change it up and make it their own for something truly unique and delicious.
- Ground turkey recipes are the tastiest when the meat is seasoned properly. Add some heat to this dish with some Sriracha or red pepper flakes.
- Not fans of rice? Use noodles instead. You can even use spaghetti noodles to mimic a lo mein and toss in some cabbage to saute it with.
- Feel free to cut the amount of sugar in this recipe. It won’t affect the flavor but it will swing more towards the savory side.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, you absolutely can! Ground turkey recipes can easily swap ground beef, pork or chicken. You will want to make sure to drain it really well since ground beef lets out a lot of liquid, but it will work just as well as the ground turkey.
When you purchase lean ground turkey at the store, it has a “sell-by” date. Your meat will likely last 1-2 days past this date if properly stored in it’s original packaging in your refrigerator. To further extend the shelf life, freeze it within 1 day past the sell by date. To maximize freshness, wrap the packaged turkey in foil and place in a freezer bag. Follow these steps to ensure you always have fresh meat on hand for all of your favorite ground turkey recipes!
More Ground Turkey Recipes
- Creamy Cheesy Turkey Taco Pasta
- Turkey Taco Soup
- Spicy Turkey Meatloaf Recipe
- Smoked Sausage and Zucchini Skillet
Teriyaki Turkey Rice Bowl
Ingredients
Teriyaki Sauce
- 1/2 cup Less Sodium Soy Sauce
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar or less as desired
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar or less as desired
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons warm water
Ground Turkey
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 pound Ground Turkey
- 1 cup finely chopped broccoli
- 2 large carrots peeled and grated
- 2 green onions diced, for garnish
- 4 cups cooked white or brown rice divided
Instructions
- Mix soy sauce, ¼ cup water, red wine vinegar, sugars, garlic and ginger in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir with a whisk until sugar is dissolved.
- In a small bowl, whisk together 2 tablespoons warm water and cornstarch until cornstarch is completely dissolved.
- Heat sauce over medium high heat. Slowly whisk in cornstarch mixture and simmer until thickened. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add diced onions and cook until soft.
- Crumble ground turkey and garlic into the pan and cook until turkey is about half cooked. Add grated carrots and chopped broccoli and continue to cook until turkey is no longer pink.
- Pour teriyaki sauce over cooked turkey and vegetable mixture and stir. Simmer for about five minutes to combine the flavors.
- Spoon meat over rice or noodles. Garnish with green onions and serve immediately.
Notes
- Teriyaki Sauce is generally sweet. However, feel free to cut back on the amount of sugar in the sauce. 1 tablespoon of each would suffice if you prefer a more savory than sweet flavor.
- The nutritional information is based on serving this teriyaki turkey over white rice. Use brown rice or just less rice to reduce calories and carbs.
- Feel free to customize this recipe with your favorite vegetables.
- A note about SERVING SIZE: A serving is approximately ¾ cup of rice and one cup of the meat/veggies.
- The serving sizes are approximate and will vary depending on a variety of factors, like how much you cook your veggies down and what size your cuts of vegetables are. As a meal, this recipe will make 4-6 servings.
I really enjoyed this! I made it with a couple of adjustments. I didn’t have red wine vinegar so I used balsamic (2 tablespoons) and I added a tiny bit of siracha for heat. I also used Truvia instead of white sugar. Annnnd I steamed a bag of riced cauliflower. Thanks for the great recipe! Will definitely be in my rotation!
You are so welcome Cary! Awesome feedback.
My entire family loves this!!! I cut the sugars in half and it was so perfect! Total points came out to 3 for WW purple! My daughter even ate it and she eats literally 3 food items so that’s saying a lot!
Nice! Thank you for the awesome feedback Danielle.
My sauce is super salty – and I used reduced salt soy sauce. Any ideas on how to cut it?
Hi Lynzi, the soy sauce is the only thing that adds salt to the sauce, so I guess you could cut back on that. I don’t find it overly salty at all, but it is a personal preference.
If I wanted to make 2 lbs of turkey would I just double everything?
Yes just double the sauce and veggies.
Love this recipe! My kids did not even realize there were veggies in it! The whole family loved it even my husband who doesn’t usually like ground turkey!
I really enjoyed this recipe! I swapped the red wine vinegar for rice vinegar, added pineapple juice to the sauce, and cooked the turkey with only the white part of green onions. Then I served it with rice and sauteed pak choi. Can you tell me how much rice is in one of your servings? I’m counting calories so just wanted to make sure I get the portions right.
Glad you have found a way to make this recipe your own. For the rice, it’s counted as 3/4 of a cup of cooked rice.
This recipe is amazing. My 3 & 5yr old love it. I’ll definitely be making more of this dish often. This is a new spin on turkey, and not even tasting like it. Thank You for sharing.
You are so welcome Katie! Thanks for stopping by.
I think overall it was good. My family enjoyed it, but if I could change anything it would be the amount of the vinegar. It was a little overpowering.
Awesome feedback Kareen! Thanks for stopping by.
I am very happy I found this recipe. We love lo mien, but many recipes I found call for ALOT of ingredients, and time. This one was a HUGH hit in my house. My kids ate it up. I followed the teriyaki sauce except I only put 2 teaspoons brown sugar and 1 teaspoon granulated sugar. I poured this over cooked lo mien noodles and a bag of cooked frozen veggies. I pan fried some turkey breasts and cut up some into that mixture. Heated it all together a few minutes. So good! Thank you. Will be having this again and again!
Thanks for the awesome feedback Meg!
SUE CAVENECIA is right the sweet heat takes it over the top. Great recipe. I served it with risotto.
This has been a family favorite recipe that I stumbled upon during COVID. It’s so flavorful and quite easy once prep is done. Thank you for sharing!
You are so welcome Cheryl! Thanks for stopping by.
Great recipe thanks!!
Needed just a little spice so added sweet chili sauce as a condiment. Great recipe!
Awesome feedback Sue! Thanks for stopping by.
Just cooked this. Didn’t have red vinegar, so used apple cider. Turned out very flavorful. Hubby loved it
Nice! Thanks for stopping by Virginia.
how much apple cider vinegar did you use in place of the red wine vinegar?
You would use the same amount.
Made this for dinner tonight and it turned out wonderful! My family loved it!
Nice! Thanks for stopping by Marie.
delicious! suggestion for anyone complaining about the sugar, you could try a tablespoon or two of plum jam instead of white sugar, it’s quite yummy!
It’s under ‘healthy dinner’ when I search. But it’s got 4 tablespooons of sugar…
Which you can cut to make the dish healthier. It also is only 400 calories for the entire meal, with rice.
Is the nutrition information for the whole dish or per serving size?
Serving size, and served over white rice.
I made this for myself for dinner and I really like it.
The next time I make it I am going to cut down on the sugar.
Awesome feedback Olivia! Thanks for stopping by.
Made this dish on Sunday – my daughter and I enjoyed it very much!
Definitely going to cook it once a month
Delicious!
This sounds so delicious! Can’t wait to try it! Do you happen to know how much a serving size is?
About 3/4 cup. The serving size will depend on the amount of veggies and the size you cut them.