These baked Turkey Meatballs with spinach and other veggies make for a great dinner and lots of leftovers. You can serve some meatballs with potatoes and salad and some others in a marinara sauce over spaghetti.
I shop once a month at Costco and often I get my meats, chicken, turkey, pork etc there. When I get home, I tend to separate the meats into ziplock bags and freeze to have them perfectly portioned for the month.
However, I like to mix the turkey meatballs (often even doubling this recipe). I make the meatballs then freeze them in ziplock bags already mixed and shaped. When I need them, I get the bag out, thaw them and cook as needed.
Most times I line up a baking tray with parchment paper and bake them. Other times, I cook them in a skillet and add a sauce then serve over pasta. You can also air fry the meatballs. It’s such a versatile recipe and once you have the basics down, you can change things as needed to make your evening easier:).
Ingredients
I want to emphasize that while this is my core recipe, I often change it slightly to incorporate ingredients I have available. For example, I use dry parsley and oregano but if I have any fresh herbs left from another recipe I prefer adding them in. Or if I have more spinach available and some extra onions, I will use less bread and add more veggies.
- Ground turkey – I use about 1.5 lbs of ground turkey, lean but you can go slightly below or slightly above this quantity.
- Spinach – about 2 cups of fresh baby spinach
- Onion – 1 yellow or white onions, finely diced
- Bread – 2 to 3 slices of bread, soaked in water or milk
- Garlic – 1 elephant garlic clove or about 5-6 regular garlic cloves, minced
- Seasonings – I love using sea salt, black pepper, paprika, oregano & parsley. However, you can add some more seasonings to your taste and the recipe would still taste great.
- Eggs – I use 2 eggs in this recipe.
- Olive oil – since ground turkey is so lean, I use about 2 tbsps of olive oil in the mix not only to bind the ingredients together but for taste too.
How to make Turkey Meatballs?
If you have never made meatballs before, don’t worry, this is not complicated and I’ll walk you through the steps. No matter the type of meat you use, it can be turkey meatballs, chicken meatballs or ground beef meatballs you basically need to have the meat thawed and then mix it with veggies, bread or panko, eggs, seasonings and herbs.
Once you have the meatballs mixed, then you can choose if you want to bake them, fry them in a skillet, air fry them or cook them in a sauce in a crockpot or incorporate them in a dish as they cook together.
My parents and grandparents would usually fry the meatballs in a skillet but I prefer to bake them.
Baked Turkey Meatballs
Equipment
- 1 Wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs ground turkey lean
- 2 cups baby spinach
- 1 onion either yellow or white
- 5-6 garlic cloves or 1 elephant clove
- 3 slices bread or about 1 cup bread crumbs or panko
- 1 tbsp sea salt
- 0.5 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp paprika use less if it's too much flavor
- 1 tbsp oregano
- 1 tbsp parsley
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsps olive oil
Instructions
- Use a food processor to finely dice onion and garlic together, you can also chop using a knife it just takes longer to chop the onion that fine. Do the same with spinach and any fresh herbs you might be using. Set them aside.
- Start pre-heating oven to 400 F.
- On a glass mixing bowl add thawed ground turkey, finely chopped or processed onion and garlic, spinach and any fresh herbs. Add eggs, seasonings and olive oil.
- If using bread crumbs add those. But if using bread slices instead, soak them quickly in water and squeeze all the moisture with your hands out, then add the bread to mixing bowl.
- Using a wooden spoon, mix all the ingredients together until everything is well incorporated.
- Set up a baking tray with parchment paper. Scoop the mix and made small round shapes about 1.5 inches in diameter and place the meatballs into the tray. Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
- Once baked, remove from oven and let rest in the tray for about 5-10 minutes before serving. Serve as desired with your favorite side dishes!
Notes
- Feel free to add other seasonings of your choice i.e. more spice or more flavor. Also, fresh herbs like mint or other herbs are ok.
- If you make the meatballs smaller or larger than 1.5 inches in diameter, the baking time might vary. Bake until meatballs are cooked through, internal temperature needs to be at least 160 degrees F.
- If you made too many meatballs, you can freeze some in ziplock bags to use for another meal later on in the week.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please save one picture from this post to your favorite boards in Pinterest or Flipboard. It will make it easier for you to retrieve the recipe in the future:). Thank you for reading my blog!
More Easy Dinner Recipes
If you want to add more recipes to your routine, feel free to check out some of my other recipes.
- Creamy Chicken with Mushrooms and Spinach
- Skillet Pasta with Sausage and Spinach
- Pork Chops with Mint Chimichurri
- Ground Beef and Mushrooms Pasta Sauce
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