TASTE
Spinach gives baked meatballs moisture, color
| • | Ready ... or not |
By Elaine Magee
Q. I saw this recipe for baked meatballs on the Food Network site and wanted you to look it over and tell me what changes to make. I would like a nice sauce to go with it, too, if you have one.
A. About the only thing this meatball is missing is ground chicken. It calls for ground pork, ground lamb and ground beef. Instead, to save fat, I used all super-lean, high-quality ground beef. The only way I know of to get lean ground pork is to grind pork tenderloin. And not a whole lot of us have access to ground lamb without special-ordering it.
I did increase the frozen spinach a bit though, because this ingredient will add moisture, color and nutrients to the meatball mix. I kept the whole egg but used a higher omega-3 egg, but you could definitely use 1/4-cup egg substitute instead. I also used half as much salt. Because the meatballs are now quite lean (meaning they'll brown less), I lightly coated the outside of each breadcrumb-rolled meatball with some canola cooking spray. I paired these meatballs with a homemade pizza sauce, but you can serve them with a sauce of your choosing.
The original recipe (just the meatballs) contains 440 calories, 28 grams fat, 11.5 grams saturated fat and 153 milligrams cholesterol per serving.
Makes about 30 meatballs (5 entree servings) and about 4 cups of pizza sauce.
BAKED MEATBALLS WITH HOMEMADE PIZZA SAUCE
For the pizza sauce:
For the meatballs:
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To make pizza sauce, add olive oil to large, nonstick saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Add all of the pizza sauce ingredients into the saucepan and use a potato masher to crush the tomatoes while the mixture begins to heat up. When the mixture comes to a gentle boil, reduce heat to low and continue to simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes.
While the pizza sauce is simmering, let's make the meatballs. In a large mixing bowl, combine the beef, spinach, parmesan cheese, egg, Italian seasoning, parsley, garlic powder, salt and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs. Using your hands or a standing mixer, mix all ingredients together until nicely blended.
Add remaining 1/2 cup bread crumbs into small bowl. Shape meatballs using a cookie scoop to measure exactly 1/8 cup. Roll each meatball into the bread crumbs and spray the outside lightly with canola cooking spray. Place each meatball in a mini-muffin cup (if you don't have a mini-muffin pan, just place on a nonstick jelly roll pan).
Bake until meatballs are cooked throughout and nicely brown on the outside (about 20 minutes). Serve with homemade pizza sauce as an appetizer or an entree.
Elaine Magee is a registered dietitian; learn more at www.recipedoctor.com.
