Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Turkey Pesto Meatballs

I may have mentioned this before, but my son Andrew sometimes has an issue with the texture of certain meats. He's weird about ground meats, especially, so it’s usually difficult to get him to eat things like meat tomato sauce and sloppy joes.

The one way I can get him to get ground meat of any type, however, is to prepare it in meatball form. Like most kids, he loves meatballs. As soon as I saw these pesto turkey meatballs, I knew we would all really like them. We all love pesto, and I loved that these were made with turkey -- a much healthier option than ground beef.

These were a huge hit with all of us, and Andrew ate about six of them all on his own. The pesto gave the meatballs a nice texture and tons of flavor. They were perfect on top of a big pile of spaghetti!


Turkey Pesto Meatballs
source: Weelicious

1 1/4 pounds lean ground turkey
1/4 cup pesto
1/4 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups marinara sauce

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place all the ingredients except marinara sauce in a bowl and using your hands, combine until everything is incorporated.

3. Using about 1 tablespoon of the mixture per meatball, roll into balls and place on a plate.

4. Pour the marinara sauce into a 9 x 9 inch baking pan and top with the meatballs.

5. Cover the baking pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Serve.

5 comments:

Larissa said...

Those look delicious -- I love the idea of adding the pesto. What a quick way to get a lot of flavor!

Deborah said...

I think Abbi is abnormal, because meat textures don't bother her at all. But I know that it is a common thing for kids not to like ground meat. I love that there is pesto in this!

Monica H said...

I'm definitely going to give these a try. I really like to use ground turkey for burgers but I think they'd be just as good in meatball form. And I love me some pesto so it's a win win. And they're baked- even better.

Tracy said...

I made these last night and had to cook them for an hour. When I took them out of the oven after 30 minutes (10 minutes longer than the recipe calls for), they were still completely raw. They tasted pretty good though!

Anonymous said...

Very tasty! I made the meatballs bigger and cooked them in a sautee pan for a few minutes before putting them in sauce and oven. Still took about an hour to cook. Very tasty!