I hope you will forgive me for yet another recipe with zucchini in it. I will try to not have zucchini in next weeks blog – but I make no promises 🙂 you can blame it on my garden!

A couple of weeks ago one of my girlfriends came over and we did a little food prep for the week. We made a couple of frittatas, oven roasted some peppers and tomatoes. Made up some cauliflower rice along with some turkey cutlets for lunches.  We also made up some meatballs. I found a chicken meatball recipe that uses yup so guessed it – shredded zucchini, sounded perfect to me.

While I was working on the frittatas she was making the meatballs. Which is why I don’t have any pictures to share with you.  Sorry about that! Though today is a a good day to have a pot of sauce cooking on the stove; I pulled the chicken meatballs out of the freezer and added them to the sauce.

It’s pretty funny that my family tends to make meatball grinders with all the meatballs I make  versus having your typical spaghetti and meatballs. I can’t even remember the last time we had a meatball sauce. We tend to just add Italian sausage to our marinara sauce instead of meatballs when making spaghetti.

The meatballs are moist with the help from the zucchini, they have a little bite from the crushed red pepper and they are a little better for you from using ground chicken instead ground beef.

Chicken Zucchini Meatballs
Ingredients

1 cup shredded zucchini
1 lb ground chicken
1 egg lightly beaten
½ cup panko breadcrumbs
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp dried basic
¼ tsp crushed red pepper
¼ tsp kosher salt

I encourage you to make a test ball or pattie and fry it up so you can taste and adjust the flavor to your liking.

Directions – preheat oven to 350’F

You need to get as much of the moisture out of your zucchini as possible. You can line a colander with paper towels; add the zucchini sprinkle a little salt and let it sit for about 20-30 minutes applying a little pressure every now and then. Or you can use a clean dish towel and squeeze the liquid out over the sink.

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients, try not to over mix. Make your test ball/pattie and fry it up in a small saute pan. Adjust if needed.

Use a cookie scoop or a tablespoon to make the balls all around the same size. Place on a prepared sheet tray. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until cooked through.  Makes around 20 meatballs.

Use now or sometime during the week or freeze individually on a sheet tray and place in a ziplock bag.

Per meatball:
Macros
103 Calories – 5 Fat – 3 Carbs – 10 Protein


Recipe from BH&G magazine