Food You Can Eat: Mediterranean-Style Turkey Meatballs

16/5/20 ThrobbinOfLoxley 17
pictureofmeatballs

This is a dish my household has made at least 3 times since we’ve been under stay-at-home orders. I find it to be tasty, relatively healthy, easy to make, and composed of commonly available ingredients. Let’s go!

You’ll need:

1 lb ground turkey

4 oz spinach or baby spinach

2 oz feta cheese, crumbled

1.5 oz sun dried tomatoes (optional)

1 egg

Garlic powder

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

To make:

Add 2 tsp olive oil to a medium skillet and set over medium heat. Once skillet is hot, add spinach until it is wilted down and dark green, remove from skillet and set aside. You can chop the spinach if you want to but it is not essential. Add all of the ground turkey to a large bowl. If using sun dried tomatoes, chop them medium-fine and stir them into the turkey, incorporating roughly 2 tsp of oil from the sun dried tomatoes jar. Crack an egg into the mixture and stir to incorporate. Add your spinach from before, along with the feta cheese, garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste (roughly 1 tsp garlic powder and black pepper, and 2 tsp kosher salt. Be aware that kosher salt is less dense per tsp than table salt, and scale accordingly). Mix everything in the bowl until it is fairly homogeneous, give your hands a light coating of olive oil, and pinch off roughly 1 oz portions of meat mixture. Roll this in your hands to form balls a bit smaller than ping pong balls. You should get between 12-16 meatballs per pound of ground turkey. Working in batches if necessary, brown your meatballs on two sides over medium heat in your skillet with a little olive oil. Transfer to a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking.

This meatball recipe is very adaptable, so please use this recipe as a launchpad for your own ideas. I’m sure chopped olives and/or capers would go nicely in this, and there’s no reason the primary meat has to be turkey. I’ve found they really sing with some tzatziki sauce on the side, which can be made from yogurt, lemon juice, dill and garlic powder mixed together and then thinned out with a little water. Happy quarant-eating!

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17 Comments

  1. Looks yummy! I always put bread crumbs in my meatballs, seems to give them a better texture and keep them together. What fat content turkey are you using the 85% or the super lean?

    • I’ve only used the ground turkey from Costco, which I believe is 87 percent lean. You’d probably need more binding and added fat with the super lean turkey. We’ve gone low-carb at my house so I skipped the breadcrumbs. I didn’t miss them in this recipe.

  2. I wonder if you could make this with a meat substitute? My daughter would love the rest of the flavors but doesn’t eat meat. Has anyone made meatless meatballs?

  5. So I have made “Mediterranean style” turkey meatballs without the feta or sundried tomatoes, but with a tzazki dipping sauce. Love them. Might have to revisit this idea. I am not a big meat eater but I have been in these dark times of survival…

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