Parmesan Turkey Meatballs

One of Laura's favorite things on the planet is a good meatball!  One of my favorite things on the planet is some good pasta!  Being gluten free now for almost 3 years I don't nearly get good pasta all that often.  One item that didn't make the cut on things to bring in our RV was my pasta roller and cutter!  So we have to stick to store bought GF pasta which isn't always the best.  W'eve had pretty good luck lately with the Barilla GF pasta.  It's a corn based pasta which obviously isn't health food but every once in a while we are all for having a good pasta meal.  

I know you didn't come here to learn about GF pastas, so let's about this meatball!!  One challenge with meatballs is they traditionally have breadcrumbs in them which unless they are made from GF bread is off limits in our house.  Some things that I've used as that binder substitute in other recipes are sweet potatoes, quiona, ground up GF crackers.  With this recipe I opted to skip the binder.  It did make the meatballs a little stickier when rolling them into balls but is was manageable and still made a good meatball, texture-wise.  If you want to alleviate that stick meat batter, go ahead and add a 1/2 cup of bread crumb or any other binder to the mixture.  

We also like to find any opportunity to sneak greens into our food.  Feel free to follow suit and add some like we did or leave them out.  If it would have just been Laura and I eating these we would have likely added more.  We were able to sneak these in and Eli still enjoyed the meatballs which is a big bonus. 

We paired this meal up with our basic marinara sauce that you can find here, just leave out the ground beef since you are doing the meatball.  

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 1/4 lb ground turkey
• 1 egg
• 1/2 c shredded parmesan
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• Fresh parsley
• Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Saute onions and garlic in a pan along with the olive oil.  After a few minutes and the onions start to turn translucent, add your greens and continue to cook until those are thoroughly wilted and the onion is cooked through.  
3. In a separate bowl add remaining ingredients, minus the fresh parsley and mix thoroughly.  Add the sauteed veggies and mix those in too.  
4. Once you have that mixed together, roll into 1 inch balls or maybe slightly larger.  Place on a baking sheet.  
5. Bake for 15 minutes.  Enjoy on their own or with some delicious pasta and marinara sauce.  Top with some fresh parsley and grated Parmesan for added boost of flavor!