One-skillet ground turkey curry with rice. This quick and easy one-pot recipe makes a complete meal of lean protein and aromatic coconut milk sauce with vegetables.
When I go out for Thai food, I immediately combine the bowl of rice with my bowl of curry, and eat it like so. With a spoon.
For me, the best way to enjoy curry is to have the rice soaking in the sauce for as long as possible for optimal flavor and creamy texture.
This recipe serves up curry in the exact way I enjoy it: with the rice already mixed in, sufficiently soaked in sauce.
For this particular recipe, I used ground turkey, which I have found to be one of the sources of animal protein my digestive system readily accepts with joy.
There are plenty of ways you can customize this easy recipe, from choosing a different protein source to using various fresh vegetables, and changing the type of curry.
Do note that this is not an authentic Thai curry recipe, but my own spin upon the classic dish.
Ingredients For Ground Turkey Curry:
The main ingredients in this recipe are lean ground turkey, full-fat canned coconut milk, white rice, fish sauce, fresh ginger, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, broth, and fresh basil.
Rather than using curry powder, I use a combination of ingredients that makes up curry powder. You can easily replace the spices with 1 to 2 tablespoons of curry powder or curry paste (to your personal taste).
This one-skillet Thai yellow curry recipe couldn’t be any easier to make. Here’s how it goes down:
How to Make One-Skillet Thai Yellow Curry:
This recipe does require a bit of forethought, as I recommend soaking the rice prior to preparing this recipe. Soak the rice for at least 1 hour, up to 24 before using it in this recipe. I soak mine in a tupperware container and keep it in the refrigerator.
Once your rice is sufficiently soaked, drain the water from it and set aside until ready to use.
Pour ⅓ cup of coconut milk into a skillet add the ground turkey. Brown for 3 to 4 minutes, flip to other side and continue browning another 2 to 3 minutes. Essentially, you’re browning the turkey meat in its cube form prior to breaking it into smaller pieces.
Stir in the fresh ginger and spices while chopping up the turkey.
Add the carrots, remaining coconut milk, broth, coconut aminos, and fish sauce, and stir well. Stir in the rice. Cover, and bring to a full boil.
Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 10 minutes.
Stir in the zucchini, cover, and cook an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until much of the liquid has been absorbed and the vegetables are cooked to desired done-ness. Stir in the chopped basil and taste the curry. Add sea salt to taste and serve in bowls.
What Type of Rice Should I Use?
To keep the prep time on this recipe low, use white rice. If you don’t mind adding another 30 to 40 minutes onto the cook time, feel free to use brown rice.
I use Lundberg Organic Sushi Rice (not sponsored) because it is so, so stinking starchy and delicious. It soaks up the sauce so well, which results in the most flavorful, amazing, chewy delightfully carby meal.
My preference when it comes to brown rice is Lundberg Organic Sprouted Brown Rice (again, not sponsored). The sprouting helps unlock the protein contained in the rice. Without sprouting, the protein in rice isn’t actually bioavailable.
Regardless of which rice you choose, be sure you do soak it for at least one hour prior to using it. Every single time I prepare rice, I soak it overnight (up to 24 hours) prior to cooking it.
The soaking process helps remove the oxalates and phytates, which ensures the rice doesn’t act as an anti-nutrient and ensures your body is able to absorb the vitamins and minerals in your meal.
Looking for ways you can customize your ground turkey curry recipe? Here are some options.
Recipe Adaptations:
- Replace the ground turkey with chicken breasts, shrimp, pork, beef, or animal protein of choice.
- For a saucier curry, reduce the amount of rice from 2 cups to 1 cup.
- Skip the animal protein and add one can of drained chickpeas for a protein source.
- Add ½ yellow onion and 4 cloves of garlic if you love onion and garlic.
- Add 1 to 3 Tbsp sriracha to spice it up (the curry is very mild the way the recipe is written).
- Use yellow curry powder, red curry paste, or green curry paste.
I use this ground turkey curry as meal prep for the week.
For over a year, I would meal prep it every Monday, or some rendition of it. I switch up the kind of curry from yellow to green curry or red curry, change up the veggies, and sometimes use ground beef instead of ground turkey.
It covers all my macro bases and is just so tasty!
If you’re a curry lover like me, also try some of these reader favorites.
More Curry Recipes:
- Thai Paleo Panang Curry
- 30-Minute Green Chicken Curry
- Nightshade-Free AIP Curry
- Chicken Massaman Curry
- Red Curry Chicken with Vegetables
- Roasted Butternut Squash Lentil Curry
Ground turkey curry each and every week!
One-Skillet Ground Turkey Thai Curry with Rice
Ingredients
- 1 (15-ounce) can full-fat coconut milk
- 1 pound lean ground turkey
- 1 Tbsp fresh ginger peeled and grated
- 2 large carrots peeled and chopped
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tsp ground paprika
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon optional
- 1 1/2 cups white rice soaked at least 1 hour
- 1 2/3 cups chicken broth
- 3 Tbsp coconut aminos or low-sodium soy sauce
- 1 to 3 Tbsp fish sauce to taste
- 1 medium zucchini squash chopped
- 1/2 tsp sea salt to taste*
- 1/3 cup fresh basil chopped
Instructions
- Place rice in a bowl and cover with 2 inches of water. Soak rice at least 1 hour (up to 24 hours). Drain the rice. It's okay if it still has a light coating of water over the grains, but be sure to drain all the water as best as possible. I use a saucepan with a lid to soak the rice and employ the lid to help drain it.
- Pour ⅓ cup of coconut milk into a skillet add the ground turkey. Brown for 3 to 4 minutes, flip to other side and continue browning another 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add ginger and spices and stir, chopping up the turkey.
- Add the carrots, remaining coconut milk, broth, coconut aminos, and fish sauce, and stir well. Stir in the rice. Cover, and bring to a full boil.
- Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 10 minutes.
- Stir in the zucchini, cover, and cook an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until much of the liquid has been absorbed and the vegetables are cooked to desired done-ness. Stir in the chopped basil and taste the curry. Add sea salt to taste and serve in bowls.
Notes
Nutrition
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Lol. Not animosity! Animos
What are the coconut animosity for and what can I use as a sub? Thx 🙂
Hi Jamie! The coconut aminos are for sweet, umami flavor. You can use liquid aminos or low-sodium soy sauce as a replacement. Hope you enjoy!
This looks so good, but I’m vegan. Do you think I could crumble extra firm tofu and use in place of the turkey? I could of course substitute vegetable broth for chicken and omit the fish sauce. Just wondered what you thought about the tofu substitution. Thank you so much.
Hi Mary! I don’t have a huge amount of experience cooking with tofu, but I would think it would work. Since it doesn’t need to be cooked for very long, I would probably add it at the end of cooking to preserve the texture. The veggie broth substitution and omitting the fish sauce will work just fine. If you’d like, you can add a little soy sauce to get some umami flavor 🙂 Hope you enjoy! xo
Delicious and easy!!!
So happy you enjoy it!
This was really good! I was wondering what do you consider a serving size?
Hi! Do I follow the same instructions if I use chicken breast?
Hi Katherine! That’s correct! Simply chop the chicken into bite sizes and proceed as normal 🙂 I hope you enjoy!
Thanks for this recipe! My family loves it! My kids aren’t huge zucchini fans so I just substitute red pepper for zucchini and leave out the cinnamon since my husband is allergic. I have made it quite a few times now.
Love that! I’m so happy your family enjoys the recipe. Thanks so much for sharing your changes! xo
Thanks for the great recipe – this was delicious! We adjusted the seasoning to our liking with a bit more salt / pepper / sugar at the end, but otherwise loved it’s versatile flavor and can’t wait to try this dish with nuts, raisins, bell peppers, peas, etc.
I’m so happy you enjoy the recipe! I love the idea of adding those ingredients – I’ll have to try that, myself! xo
To cut down on calories, couldn’t I use no-fat coconut milk? I could brown the turkey without any fat (as I usually do) and just add the coconut milk later?
Hi Kate!
That will work. The dish won’t taste as rich or creamy, but if you’re fine with that, a lower fat option will work just fine 🙂
We found this spice profile too much on the sweet side with the cinnamon and ginger so we didn’t even eat it 🙁 However, the texture and overall ease of making this was great so I will definitely make this again but just use a premade curry powder or just a slightly different spice profile.
Hi Dottie! I’m so sorry to hear that! I’m glad you’ll try it again but bummer about the first round. 🙁 Thanks so much for the feedback! xoxo
My husband made this last night and it was SOOOOO delicious!!!
I’m so happy you and your husband enjoy it! Thanks for the sweet note! xoxo
Eek! Ran out of liquid before adding the zucchini! Added more broth. Will reduce rice to 1 cup next round. Also used ground beef because that is what I had. Hubs loved it.
Oh no, sorry about that, Mary! So happy you were able to make it work out. Thank you for sharing! 🙂 xoxox
Maybe it was just me, but the liquid was all gone before the zucchini got in. I would recommend using less rice
Hi Jared,
Thanks so much for the feedback. Seems like that was a common piece of advice, so I’ll lower the amount in the recipe. Many thanks!
Loved this! My guys asked for twice the protein. So I will figure out how to do that for next time.
I’m so happy you and your guys loved it!! xoxo
What are the black seeds in the curry – looks much thicker than pepper?
Hi there! They’re sesame seeds 🙂
Has anyone tried doing this recipe in the Instant Pot? I feel like it would be perfect but wondering about the timing?
Hi Kristina,
I haven’t tested it yet, but when I cook rice in the Instant Pot, I typically do 8 minutes on high pressure then let it naturally release for about 3 minutes. Let me know if you try it!
I was also wondering about the curry. The title says it has curry but the recipe makes no mention of it.
Hi Stephy,
Curry is a blend of spices. It’s typically made up of cumin, coriander, garlic powder, ground ginger, and turmeric 🙂 You can replace the spices in the recipe with curry powder if you’d like.