A 25-minute turkey kebab recipe that delivers big flavors on busy nights
The ready-to-cook kebabs you find at the supermarket are designed to draw a shopper's eye with their colorful chunks of vegetables and proteins, but cooks with skewering savoir faire know that when same-ingredient items populate each metal or bamboo rod (shish!), there's a better chance those foods will cook evenly.
That principle applies to this recipe, as it follows pretty closely to the playbook of shaping the portions of spiced, oniony ground meat on a stick, also known as koftas. Ground turkey fills in for the typical ground lamb; in testing with light- and dark-meat turkey, we found the latter had a slight edge in flavor and juiciness. If you want to use lean ground lamb, grass-fed ground beef or ground chicken instead, go for it.
Speaking of juicy, the addition of grated squash adds moisture and helps bind the mixture together. And you can drizzle your cooked kebabs with tahini sauce, which takes no more than a minute or two to assemble.
When you grill the kebabs outdoors and have room on the grate, cut up the rest of your zucchini or yellow squash as well as single-skewer amounts of any or all of the following: bell peppers, mushrooms, red onion, eggplant, par-cooked potato. (Be sure to season the lot and drizzle them with olive oil.) Or simply thread on some small tomatoes, with sprigs of fresh rosemary between them. The vegetables will round out this meal, or they'll be at the ready for your next-day lunch or dinner.