Basic Turkey Meatballs

I’ve been really into the concept of freezer meals and making stuff ahead of time to try to streamline dinner prep a few nights a week, but so far I’ve been completely lousy about the execution.  I recently had the idea of making up some basic turkey meatballs that would work well with multiple sauces and for multiple meals.  I’ve now made these a couple of times, with tweaks, and I think I’ve hit on a keeper recipe.  These basic turkey meatballs work well with marinara, barbeque sauce, and…well I’m sure they’d be fine for something else, but our number one use for them is meatball sandwiches (with marinara and mozzarella), which are COMPLETE AND TOTAL CRACK.  Seriously.  I dare you to eat just one.   Makes 60-66 meatballs.

Basic Turkey Meatballs

Ingredients:
  • 1 lb 85% lean ground turkey
  • 2 lb 90% lean ground turkey (or 3 pounds total of whatever ground meat you prefer)
  • 1.5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
  • 2 eggs + 1/4 cup egg whites (or you can just do 3 eggs and beat them first and pour half in because you can’t fit the whole batch in the food processor)
  • 1 large zucchini
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 large, sweet onion
  • For House Blend seasoning:
    • 1 tbsp + 1 tsp sea salt
    • 1 tsp garlic powder
    • 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
Directions:
  1. Preheat your oven to broil.
  2. In your food processor, blitz the zucchini, carrots, and onion.  Scoop out into a bowl.
  3. Blitz the oats and add to the veggie bowl.  Stir until well combined.
  4. Probably your food processor won’t be big enough to do the whole batch of meatballs at once.  I did mine in 2 batches.  Put half the turkey in with half the oat and veggie mixture, 1 egg, and 1 tbsp of the house blend seasoning.  Blitz until well combined.
  5. Using a small scoop (about 1/8th cup), drop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet.  I say drop because this seems really fluid and really doesn’t roll into balls, so they work kinda like drop biscuits.  I can fit about 20 on one of my sheets.
  6. Cook on broil for 10-15 minutes (mine took 12).
  7. Allow to cool, then pop the baking sheet directly into the freezer to freeze.
  8. Once frozen, pop into gallon size Ziplock bags.

 

Basic Turkey Meatballs
 
I've been really into the concept of freezer meals and making stuff ahead of time to try to streamline dinner prep a few nights a week, but so far I've been completely lousy about the execution. I recently had the idea of making up some basic turkey meatballs that would work well with multiple sauces and for multiple meals. I've now made these a couple of times, with tweaks, and I think I've hit on a keeper recipe. These basic turkey meatballs work well with marinara, barbeque sauce, and...well I'm sure they'd be fine for something else, but our number one use for them is meatball sandwiches (with marinara and mozzarella), which are COMPLETE AND TOTAL CRACK. Seriously. I dare you to eat just one. Makes 60-66 meatballs.
Author:
Recipe type: Freezer Meals
Cuisine: Gluten and Dairy Free
Ingredients
  • 1 lb 85% lean ground turkey
  • 2 lb 90% lean ground turkey (or 3 pounds total of whatever ground meat you prefer)
  • 1.5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
  • 2 eggs + ¼ cup egg whites (it's 3 eggs total...you're welcome to just beat them first and split between the two batches)
  • 1 large zucchini
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 large, sweet onion
  • For House Blend seasoning:
  • 1 tbsp + 1 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to broil.
  2. In your food processor, blitz the zucchini, carrots, and onion. Scoop out into a bowl.
  3. Blitz the oats and add to the veggie bowl. Stir until well combined.
  4. Probably your food processor won't be big enough to do the whole batch of meatballs at once. I did mine in 2 batches. Put half the turkey in with half the oat and veggie mixture, 1 egg, and 1 tbsp of the house blend seasoning. Blitz until well combined.
  5. Using a small scoop (about ⅛th cup), drop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I say drop because this seems really fluid and really doesn't roll into balls, so they work kinda like drop biscuits. I can fit about 20 on one of my sheets.
  6. Cook on broil for 10-15 minutes (mine took 12).
  7. Allow to cool, then pop the baking sheet directly into the freezer to freeze.
  8. Once frozen, pop into gallon size Ziplock bags.

One thought on “Basic Turkey Meatballs

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Rate this recipe:  

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.