How to make a healthy ground turkey taco soup recipe in the slow cooker

Healthy recipes are never a bad thing, but sometimes they don’t taste so good.

Every once in a while you stumble across a healthy recipe that just happens to taste good too.

Combine that with this taco soup recipe being about as simple as it gets, and I would say we have a definite winner on our hands here.

Seriously, if you can work a can opener, you have this one beat already. 🙂

First you are going to need the ingredients. As you can see in the pic (please see pic at the end of this post) I use 2 cans of corn, 2 cans of diced tomatos, 2 cans of pinto beans, 1 can of light red kidney beans, 1 can of dark red kidney beans and 1 can of Ro-Tel original. That’s it for the cans. Next, I use 1 packet of taco seasoning and 2  packs of dry ranch dressing. Last but not least you are going to want your ground turkey. This is a 2.5 pound container shown here. Now if you just keep it to that, you have yourself a healthy, low fat meal for sure. I’ll give you two more ingredients that really make this good though, shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream. Add them or don’t, it’s up to you. I eat and like it both ways.

The first time I ever made this, I put the ground turkey in a covered pan and browned it. After it was cooked I drained off the grease and then put the turkey in the bottom of the slow cooker.

I did it that way a few times and then I started thinking, “I wonder what would happen if I just put the ground turkey in without cooking it?” I tasted a little bit of the turkey grease and to be completely honest it tasted like chicken broth. It wasn’t greasy or nasty at all like ground beef grease. So I decided the next time I made it, I’d try putting the turkey in uncooked. I was sure glad I did because in my opinion it makes this recipe for taco soup way better. Also, browning the turkey was the hardest part so it is always good to make it a little easier too right? 🙂

I do prefer putting the turkey in uncooked though. It’s totally up to you which way you want to do it. One thing to be certain of if you put it in raw, though. You MUST make sure it is fully cooked before you eat it. You don’t want anyone eating uncooked turkey unless you think going to the hospital is a good time. 🙂

When I took these pictures, the turkey had actually been frozen and I had let it thaw out a little. I used a large turner I like to cut it up and separate the turkey. It worked pretty well. You want to cut the turkey up into pieces small enough so the taco soup will be easy to eat.

Mine ended up looking like this.

Once you have that out of the way, the next thing I do is open the taco seasoning packet and sprinkle it all over the turkey. You want to try to coat it evenly, but I doubt you could screw this up. Just don’t dump it into a pile in the middle. Next, you want to do the same thing with the ranch dressing packet. I used one packet the first time I tried this, but after using two I never went back. I think adding two packets gives it a little more flavor.

Next you want to get together your corn, tomatoes and Ro-Tel . Open the cans and dump the entire contents into your crock on top of the turkey. You don’t want to strain any of the liquid out. All of it goes in, trust me 🙂

Now you want to open the beans and RINSE them. There is dirt and all kinds of yuck in a can of beans so you definitely don’t want to dump them into the crock without rinsing first. What I do is dump them into a metal colander I have then rinse them well with the sink sprayer. I think I usually rinse one can at a time but I wouldn’t try more than two. The more full the colander is, the harder it is to rinse the beans well.

When fully rinsed, drain all excess water and add the beans to the crock.
If you browned your turkey first, you would want to be continually mixing everything as you add it.

If you are adding the turkey raw like I said here, I DON’T mix it until the end. Reason being, I like the turkey to stay at the bottom of the crock. To start out, I turn the slow cooker on high until I’m sure the turkey is cooked through. After 3 or 4 hours or whenever I think the turkey is cooked, (this will depend on the slow cooker you are using, please see the manufacturer’s directions) I stir well then turn the crock to low. I let it simmer for a few more hours or so after that on low. Really, I just let it go until we are ready to eat more or less. The longer it simmers the better it tastes. 🙂

That’s pretty much it. If you decide to fire some extra calories in at the end, add some shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream. I like to mix it all up when I do that like this.

Even if you leave the cheese and sour cream out this is really good stuff. We eat it quite a bit, especially during Football Season. 🙂

This is one of the best ground turkey recipes I’ve found yet.

I hope you like it as much as we do!

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of corn
• 2 cans of diced tomatos
• 2 cans of pinto beans
• 1 can of light red kidney beans
• 1 can of dark red kidney beans
• 1 can of Ro-Tel original
• 1 packet of taco seasoning
• 2  packs of dry ranch dressing
• ground turkey

Enjoy!

If you try this one, please let me know about it in the comment section below.

Thanks!!!