Gobble Up: 1 Healthy Turkey Meatball Recipe

 

In anticipation of Thanksgiving I was perusing my mom’s stash of gourmet cookbooks. I love gourmet cookbooks because the recipes are delicious. But they are also often fattening, complicated and requiring of ingredients I have never heard of.

So the cookbooks were a bust for Thanksgiving, but in my mom’s humble, scrawled, recipe notebook I found just the ticket: a recipe for turkey meatballs that sounds both delicious and healthy. And * hallelujah * it doesn’t involve butter, frying or mysterious sounding ingredients like Pernod.

Since I am not making the dish requiring Pernod, I will be saving all the time I would have spent hunting for this damn thing at Whole Foods. And I am instead going to use this time to make Mom’s turkey meatball recipe! Not for Thanksgiving… but sometime over the holiday break.

 Turkey Meatballs & Spaghetti

Ingredients:

3 cups bread crumbs

 

2/3 cup whole milk

2 pounds ground turkey

½ pound sweet Italian pork sausage (take casings off)

3        ounces thinly sliced prosciutto

1 cup grated Asiago cheese

½ cup minced fresh parsley

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, salt and black pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 large eggs, beaten

3 jars marinara sauce (They should each be 24 ounce jars.)

2 pounds spaghetti

 

Directions:

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper.

In bowl, add bread crumbs & milk. Set aside.

 

In a large bowl, combine turkey, sausage, prosciutto, bread mixture, Asiago, parsley, oregano, red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 ½ teaspoon pepper.

 

Combine ingredients with your hands. Add the 3 tablespoons of olive oil and the eggs and stir with a fork to combine.

 

Wash hands.

 

Roll mixture into 2 inch round meatballs and place them on the prepared sheet pans. Brush meatballs with olive oil. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the tops are browned and the centers are cooked.

 

Pour marinara sauce in a large pot, add meatballs and bring to a simmer.

 

Cook spaghetti in large pot of boiling salted water according to package directions. Drain and place spaghetti in individual bowls and top with meatballs and sauce. Serve with Parmesan cheese on the side.

 

Make this recipe to power yourself up after hunting down all those Black Friday deals, guru girls & guys. Happy upcoming Thanksgiving!