Watch how it’s made
Every step in 1:23 — from the ingredients to the finished dish.
Zucchini is 95 percent water, and that single fact decides whether this dish works. Handled carelessly it floods the pan and you end up with turkey poaching in vegetable liquid. Handled properly it browns and holds its shape.
At 11 grams of carbohydrate a serving this is the lowest-carbohydrate dinner here, and it takes twenty minutes in one pan.
Salt the zucchini first
This is the step that changes everything. Cut it, toss it with half a teaspoon of salt, and leave it in a colander for fifteen minutes. Water beads out and drips away.
Pat it dry afterwards. You will have removed a surprising amount, and what goes into the pan will brown rather than steam.
If you have not got fifteen minutes, the alternative is a very hot pan, a single layer and no stirring. Less effective, but better than nothing.
Cut it thick
Half-moons about half an inch thick. Thin slices have more surface area relative to their volume, release their water faster and collapse into mush.
Thick pieces hold together and end up with browned faces and a centre that still has bite, which is what you want.
The turkey goes first and comes out
Brown the turkey, take it out, cook the zucchini in the same pan, then return the turkey at the end.
Cooked together the turkey overcooks while the zucchini releases its water, and the browned base you want to build flavour on never forms. Two stages, one pan.
Where the flavour comes from
There is no sauce here and it does not need one. Garlic, dried oregano, red pepper flakes and a good amount of black pepper, with lemon squeezed over at the end and parmesan grated on top.
The parmesan is worth including. An ounce carries about 10 grams of protein and almost no carbohydrate, and its saltiness does the work a sauce would.
What to eat it with
At 11 grams there is room for whatever you want alongside. A slice of wholegrain bread is about 15 grams, half a cup of quinoa about 20.
It also works as it is. Between 38 grams of protein and the volume of zucchini it is a full plate, and on a day when the carbohydrate has already gone elsewhere this is the dinner that costs nothing.