servings
Beef & Turkey Meatballs
Meatball Quinoa Soup, Meatballs in your favourite sauce on pasta and Meatball Subs in a marinara sauce are 3 meal ideas. If kids are doing this recipe I would suggest only 1 recipe split between 2 or 3 families so the kids don't get overwhelmed by the rolling involved. This is a great recipe to do with friends because you can chat while you roll the meatballs. Feel free to adjust the mixture of ground meats – all beef, all turkey or a mixture of beef and pork are also delicous.
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 carrot
- 1 lb lean ground beef
- 1 lb lean ground turkey (breast meat is great if you can find it)
- 3/4 cup bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- In a 10 inch frying pan heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute until soft approximately 10 minutes.
- Stir in minced garlic and cook for another minute then set pan aside to cool.
- In a large bowl grate the carrot.
- To the bowl add ground beef, ground turkey, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, egg, salt, pepper and reserved onion mixture.
- With your hands mix all ingredients together until it is consistent – you might need to help kids with this step.
- Rolling between your 2 palms form meat mixture into small meatballs approximately 2 cm in size. Use approximately 1/3 of the mixture for these meatballs to be added to your soup.
- At this point you should begin your soup preparation. Once the soup is simmering you can make additional meatballs of a larger size to be used in meatball subs or pasta.
- To cook meatballs you can bake them on a large baking sheet at 400 degrees for approximately 20 minutes stirring after 10 minutes.
- To cook meatballs in a marinara sauce, first bring the sauce to a boil, add meatballs and cover. Simmer this sauce for 45 minutes to one hour. Meatballs can be tested and should register 165 degrees in the centre.
