Happy Presidents’ Day! I took advantage of the day off from work to prepare a casserole that will leave enough leftovers for dinner all week. Since I live and work in NYC, I like to prepare one large meal at the beginning of the week that has enough servings for dinner all week because, let’s face it, cooking is the last thing I want to do after a long day.

This week, I decided to make a casserole with a healthy twist. Instead of regular rice I used cauliflower rice, in addition to tons of filling vegetables like sweet potatoes and zucchinis. The idea for incorporating cauliflower rice came to me today while I was grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. In the frozen section, they have prepared cauliflower rice that just requires a few minutes to cook on the stove. You can also make your own cauliflower rice for this recipe. I’ve done it before and it’s very simple if you have a food processor (unfortunately I don’t have one in my apartment so the pre-riced version at Trader Joe’s is a convenient shortcut).

Timing:

• Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes
• Cook Time: 60 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes- 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients: makes 4-5 servings

• One package of Trader Joe’s frozen cauliflower rice
• Two medium sweet potatoes, cut into thin slices
• Two zucchinis, chopped
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 package ground turkey
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1/2 cheddar cheese (mozzarella cheese works too)
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• Pinch of garlic powder
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat oil in a medium skillet and cook the chopped zucchini. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir occasionally and cook for about 5 minutes until the zucchini is a soft. Remove from heat and put to the side.

In the same skillet, add the onions and cook until soft. Add the ground turkey and garlic powder and cook until no longer pink. Add the cauliflower rice and cook until no longer frozen. Then, add the tomato sauce and cooked zucchinis and let the ingredients cook together for 3-5 more minutes.

While the turkey mixture cooks, place the sweet potato slices in a casserole dish to form a layer of sweet potatoes.

Layer the turkey and rice mixture on top of the sweet potato layer. Then, place another layer of sweet potatoes on top of the turkey and rice mixture.

Place a final turkey and rice layer on top of the second layer of sweet potatoes and fill the casserole dish to the top. Sprinkle the cheese and breadcrumbs on top.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, until sweet potatoes are soft. Enjoy!