Recipe: $9.42 | Per Serving: $1.18 | Yield: 8
It's about that time of year when we've all got basil coming out of our ears, amiright? Well, at least those of us lucky enough to have basil plants and/or friends who have lots of extra basil. Basil is one of my favorite herbs, so I'm super stoked to have an abundance right now. I feel summer waning, and I just hope I can get one or two more good harvests from our basil plants so I can stock up. Because future me is going to want to make things like these easy baked (!!) garlic-basil meatballs.
As much as I love stovetop meatballs, I really hate how they become misshapen. I was planning to make straight up garlic-basil sausage, but then I really didn't feel like standing over the stove and making sausage patties, so I decided to go straight for oven-baked meatballs instead. I will say that if you knead this mixture like sausage, the resulting meatballs from the oven will be a little spongey. If you're going to finish them off in sauce, this is no problem, but if you want to enjoy them with, say, pesto and zucchini noodles, just don't mix the raw meat for more than a minute or two.
We froze half of these little beauties, and the other half are going with Slow Cooker Ratatouille (which was such a great way to use up vegetables from our Hungry Harvest Box) this week. I decided to toss them in to the slow cooker during the last 15-30 minutes to warm up and soak up some juices - it's a great idea!
For Paleo: All good - these are totally Paleo.
Baked Garlic-Basil Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 cup basil packed
- 8 cloves garlic
- ½ cup cold water
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 2 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 pounds ground beef turkey, pork or chicken
Instructions
- Blend the basil and garlic in a blender or food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the cold water and blend until well combined.
- Using a large bowl, combine the ground beef, salt, olive oil, and basil-garlic-water mixture. Stir until well mixed.
- Form the meat into 1-inch-size balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake on 375ºF for 20 minutes, or until fully cooked. Drain the meatballs on paper towels. Serve or freeze.
Is the nutritional calorie count per meatball?
Good question - yes! They're per meatball if you make 40 meatballs.
These simple meatballs would be perfect for meal prep and use throughout the week! Love the short ingredient list -- they seem super easy to make.