Easy and Healthy Pasta Meat Sauce

This is one of my dad's favorite spaghetti sauces... Made healthy(er). He calls it the Thurl Bailey spaghetti sauce (Thurl Bailey is a former NBA jazz player). Legend has it (so my dad says) that Thurl had to take care of his younger siblings a lot... One day they didn't have anything to cook for dinner so Thurl threw this spaghetti sauce together based off of things they had in the house.

Usually it's made with red meat... But to try and make it healthier I switched it out with lean ground turkey. 

I feel scared throwing around the term "healthy" anymore because I know there is someone out there who is going to read this and say, "HEALTHY?! This should be made with your home grown tomatoes and spices straight out of your garden... You used something canned?! Are you trying to give yourself botulism?!"

Hahah! So here's my take on that, any recipe I share with you I try and keep it within the categories of healthy, easy, and also pleases to the masses. If it's not damaging to you and your kids want to eat it... We're onto something. Ya dig? Good? Good.

So right now I'm working on making myself some meals for once I have this baby. So I'm doubling all my recipes and then throwing the extra in Tupperware in the freezer. Then... Once I'm in my postpartum zombified state I can just pull it out of the freezer, heat it up, boil some spaghetti and feed us all. Yahoo.

The recipe readily feeds four adults. If you are postpartum meal prepping (like me) I'll put the doubled measurements in parenthesis to the side.

Ingredients 

1 lb lean ground turkey (or 2 lbs)

1 can hormel no bean chilli (or 2 cans)

1 bottle of roasted garlic prego spaghetti sauce (or 2 bottles)  

1 green pepper (or 2 green peppers)

1 medium sized yellow onion (or two yellow  onions)

2 tsp oregano (or 4 tsp oregano)

Salt and pepper

(Optional) sliced mushrooms

1. On stovetop, oil pan and begun heating over medium heat. Add ground turkey, sprinkle salt (just a tsp or so) and pepper over it, add oregano. 

2. With spoon break up turkey into smaller pieces as it browns. 

3. Chop onion and green pepper.

4. Once meat is mostly brown, add pepper and onion and cover.

5. Continue cooking and stiring over medium heat until green pepper and onion pieces are beginning to soften.

6. Add chilli and spaghetti sauce then let simmer over low heat. If you are adding mushrooms add at this point. I let it simmer for at least 20 minutes so the flavors can soak into each other.

7. Serve with your favorite spaghetti. I used regular spaghetti but a healthier option would have been whole wheat pasta or quinoa pasta (<--- still needing to try that!)

8. Enjoy!

As I prepare my freezer postpartum meals I'll be sharing the recipes with you, be on the lookout! I made some cream cheese chicken enchiladas the other day that were delectable... I'll be sharing that recipe soon!

Hope you enjoyed!

Xoxo Britney 

Instagram: @britneymunday

E-mail: fitmombritney@gmail.com