Ground Turkey and Sweet Potato Bowls

Would you believe me if I told you each one of these Mediterranean ground turkey and sweet potato bowls has 51 grams of protein with only 9 grams of fat and 500 calories?

How to Make Mediterranean Ground Turkey Protein Bowls

My recipe has four main components:

1. Roasted Sweet Potatoes
2. Mediterranean Ground Turkey
3. Basmati and Cauliflower Rice Blend
4. Feta and Yogurt Sauce

Below you can see a visual walkthrough for making each component. If you’re in a hurry, you can jump straight to the recipe card at the bottom of the post. Just hop back here if you want to see something in action.

Part One: Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Dice two large sweet potatoes (or buy pre-diced) and toss them with olive oil, kosher salt, and coarsely ground black pepper. Feel free to add more seasoning to the potatoes, but there’s plenty of flavor action happening with other components.

Bake the sweet potatoes at 450ºF for 25-30 minutes until they’re nice and crispy. If you have an air fryer, 400ºF for 10-12 minutes, shaking halfway through, should get the job done according to this recipe.

Substitution note: Since I’m writing this in late September, butternut squash is on the brain. According to my guide for low calorie potato substitutes, butternut squash has roughly half the calories of sweet potatoes. It would work great in these protein bowls, too.

Part Two: Mediterranean Ground Turkey

Start by browning two pounds of lean ground turkey breast (99% lean) in one teaspoon of olive oil. The key to browning is a hot pan and leaving the mince untouched once it’s in the pan. Once your turkey is golden brown on one side like the above photo, add diced red onion and get to crumbling.

Cook both for another 5-6 minutes until the ground turkey is fully cooked (no pink remains).

For the Mediterranean sauce, mix together a few spices and herbs, lemon juice, honey, and harissa paste. Thanks to Cava (and my under-appreciated rotisserie chicken gyros), most people are privy to the magic of harissa. But just in case, harissa is a Mediterranean chili paste you can find in most grocery stores these days. I used Trader Joe’s harissa paste in this recipe.

If you don’t have harissa on hand, another chili paste or sauce like sriracha, sambal oelek, or chili garlic sauce (like I used for my ground turkey green bean skillet) would be decent alternatives. You might even get by with something like tomato paste, chili flakes, and a bit more garlic.

The sauce goes in the pan with the fully cooked ground turkey and onion before it’s cooked for 1-2 minutes until fragrant and coating all the turkey.

Part Three: Low Calorie Rice Blend

Regular readers will be tired of my highlighting “half calorie” rice, which is just a blend of riced cauliflower and your favorite “real” rice like jasmine or basmati rice. This adds tons of volume to meals while mostly masking the cauliflower.

These sweet potato and ground turkey bowls call for a 50:50 blend of frozen basmati and cauliflower rice (pictured above) that’s simply microwaved then stirred together with freshly chopped dill. Easy peasy, and you might even give it a lemon squeezy.

Part Four: Blended Feta Sauce

Believe it or not, I actually started working on this recipe after seeing an Instagram reel about this blended feta sauce. I made some calorie reducing tweaks and came up with the other three components to go underneath the sauce.

It’s a mixture of reduced fat crumbled feta, nonfat Greek yogurt, lemon juice, dill, garlic, and honey. Sounds good, right? It is.

I will add, since these bowls are already very low in fat, you can probably get away with full fat feta, yogurt, or even a bit of olive oil for a creamier sauce if you prefer.

Tips for Serving, Storing for Meal Prep, and Reheating

I’ve included notes in the recipe card below with nutrition facts for each component in case you would like to customize the serving sizes of your ground turkey bowls or make other customizations.

Want to omit rice altogether or swap it for another grain? Go for it. I’d love to hear about it in the comments of this post or a recipe review.

I recommend storing the rice, sweet potatoes, and ground turkey together in the refrigerator or freezer if you’re going to use this recipe for meal prep. That way you can microwave them without the sauce.

If you’re a crispy potato purist, you could store the potatoes on their own and pop them back in the oven or air fryer while you reheat the rice and ground turkey.

That should be everything you need to know about these ground turkey and sweet potato bowls. I hope you love them. Print or save the recipe card below and get your shopping list together. See you next time!