Quick Turkey Bolognese Pasta

Quick Turkey Bolognese Pasta
Home Cooking

I pan-fried a batch of 16 mini turkey patties and felt overwhelmed with how I was going to eat them all. 16 x turkey burgers is alright for some but my burger quota is maybe once a week. Sure, some of them could be used in wraps or even mixed with leaves in a salad but I felt like diversifying.

This isn't going to be a complicated, fancy or 'proper' recipe. I just drew on inspiration from what I had available in the pantry and pulled together a quick and easy bolognese-style sauce to top some pasta with (I had papardelle on hand).

Rather than taking my recipe (below) as law, think of it as a guide on how to use up left over meatballs or patties, whether they be turkey mince-based or otherwise. It's easy to alternate the recipe with the addition of other vegetables and components. I happened to have fresh tomato, sun-dried tomato and garlic on hand.

Quick Turkey Bolognese Pasta
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 5 turkey patties from this recipe (or roughly 200g of any left over mince-based product)
• 1 tomato, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp sun-dried tomato, chopped
• 300ml of tomato-based pasta sauce (I used 3/4 jar of Dolmio's Tomato and Basil)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper
• cooked pasta, to serve
• grated parmesan, to serve

Procedure:

1. In a large saucepan, heat up some olive oil and fry the garlic until aromatic. Add the fresh tomato and sun-dried tomato. Cook until the fresh tomato is softened.

2. Add the turkey patties and break down roughly with a wooden spoon. Don't break them down too much because chunks of meat are good.

3. Add the pasta sauce, water, oregano and thyme. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

4. Meanwhile cook the pasta according to instructions on the packet.
5. Serve the pasta topped with the turkey bolognese. Top with freshly grated parmesan.

This sauce was so easy to whip up. If I had onions at my disposal I would've chucked some in but it still ended up very tasty. I commented in the turkey burger post that the burger patties had a strong turkey flavor, which took me a while to get used to. If anyone finds turkey mince strange, I would recommend trying it in bolognese form first because the tomato flavor is great in masking it.

I ended up eating one portion straight away and freezing the rest for weekday work lunches. Don't skimp out on the parmesan because it really lifts the sauce. It sure beatings eating consecutive turkey burgers every day.