It has been a dreary, wet week here in the Midwest. Everyone, including my little family, seems to be sick with some sort of bug. We’ve been stuck inside which has afforded me plenty of time to play in the kitchen.
I have been tweaking how I cook to remove all dairy and grain in order to accommodate the whole30 I am doing. I am wrapping up and will be officially done on Monday February 8. It has been a great experience, but I’m not going to lie – I’m pretty excited to use and eat cheese again.
Last night for dinner, I made grain and dairy free turkey meatballs. As an Italian- American it feels scandalous to even type those words….what was even more shocking was that my Italian-American husband actually liked the balls!
I’d like to think that my “real” meatballs would blow these balls away, however, for dairy and grain free I will say these balls are pretty tasty.
Necessities:
1.5 pounds 93% lean ground turkey
½ of a small yellow onion (2-3 Tablespoons worth)
½ cup ground almond meal
2 tablespoons fresh parsley (yes, fresh really is better here)
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 eggs
2 tablespoons Nutritional Yeast *more on this stuff later
Method:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Using a chef’s knife or a small food processor chop up the garlic, onion and parsley. Honestly, investing in a small food processor to do small chopping tasks like this is really useful. But if you enjoy chopping, by all means get to it!
Next add the chopped goodies to the turkey, eggs, almond meal, salt, pepper, red pepper and nutritional yeast in a large bowl.
Side note on Nutritional Yeast – yes, it has a very unfortunate name. No one goes to their best friend and says, “I’m totally craving some Nutritional Yeast on my burger, hashtag drool.” It’s just never going to happen. Even if the idea of nutritional yeast is to mimic the umami flavor that can be likened to aged cheese or really good soy sauce, it just doesn’t have a kick-ass name like Parmesan or sharp cheddar. Nonetheless, it is good stuff, especially if you can’t eat dairy and can be added to many dishes to bring out depth of flavor.
Back to the balls….using your (clean) hands mix the meaty mixture until it is uniform – it will be rather sticky and should look like this.
Wet your hands with water then grab a small handful of the mix and roll into a ball and place on an unlined baking sheet. You will need to wet your hands every few balls. I ended up with 26 meatballs, yours may be bigger or smaller, but you’re aiming for about 2 dozen.
Place trays in preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.
Staying cheese and grain free, I put mine into a homemade tomato sauce before serving over spaghetti squash. It was delightful and very filling. I made my husband a quick garlic butter sauce with spinach and whole wheat rotini for his meal. And yes he got both mozzarella AND Parmesan on his, too, and for that I will say, “hashtag drool!”
You could also make these bad boys for Super Bowl Sunday and serve them with cute little toothpicks and fun dipping sauces.
On the topic of Super Bowl Sunday, what are you planning to make to snack on?
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