I never made meatballs until I met Charlie. I knew how to make them of course, I’ve seen my mom make meatloaf before, how different could it be? And Charlie doesn’t eat mammals so, making them with turkey is better for you and less scary for me to work with raw meat.
Ingredients:
- 3 pounds ground turkey (This makes a ton of meatballs, which I freeze and defrost in sauce whenever I want them for pasta.)
- 2 large chopped white onions
- 3 eggs (1 egg per pound of turkey, so if you want less meatballs subtract pounds and eggs equally.)
- Breadcrumbs with Italian seasoning
- Italian seasoning
- About 1 teaspoon of Salt and Pepper
Preparation:
Chop up your onions, smaller the better, but I get lazy so sometimes my meatballs look like they have spikes of onion sticking out.
In a huge bowl, mix your 3 pounds of turkey with the onion and salt and pepper. (I use my hands, TAKE OFF YOUR JEWELRY!)
Break in the eggs (like I said 1 egg per pound of turkey).
Once you mix all this together it will be really wet and making pretty gross noises as you knead it. (I do this with one hand, so that my left hand is sanitary and not raw meat-ified.)
Pour in about a half a cup of the breadcrumbs. I always just guess at it.
Then I mix in some more Italian seasoning (sometimes I add red pepper flakes or chili powder, but nowadays I leave the spiciness to my sauce and have the meatballs pretty basic).
Mix that in and if it’s still really wet, add in more breadcrumbs.
You want a texture that’s perfect for making shapes, if your mixture is not dry enough to do that you aren’t ready for making balls. However if it’s too dry your meatballs will taste more like meat-flavored bread.
So add in breadcrumbs small amounts at a time, you can always add more, you can’t subtract.
Then I mix in some more Italian seasoning (sometimes I add red pepper flakes or chili powder, but nowadays I leave the spiciness to my sauce and have the meatballs pretty basic).
And Viola, you have a huge bowl of spiced breaded ground meat.
Now I take baking sheets and cover them in tin foil (because I hate cleaning up.)
When I am feeling extra nice I spray the tin foil lightly with some kind of nonstick spray.
I take one hand to grab and ball up the meatballs and the other to hold the huge bowl.
I make my meatballs about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, try to pick a size and stick to it so that every one on the baking sheet will cook through at the same rate.
I place them about an inch apart on the baking sheet, like this beautiful picture.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Take them out and use a spatula or spoon or something to unstick the meatballs from the tin foil and roll them so that their bottom side is no longer the bottom.
Then bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how well done you like them.
The meatballs freeze like champions! Just make sure they are entirely cooled before you try to wrap them up and suck as much of the air from the plastic bag as you can before freezing.