When you scroll down and look at all the ingredients and instructions you might think “this looks too hard”, but believe me, this was a very easy meal. No matter how busy you are, or how much work you have to do, there is always time to eat real, nutritious and delicious food.
All up I spent less the 45 mins preparing and cooking this dinner, and I was working slowly because I enjoy it. I really like putting my time and effort into a good meal, and even if I’m short on time I will still try to make something decent and healthy to fill me up, even if that is just a vegetable omelette (very easy to do in about 10 mins).
Monday is grocery shopping day for us, and that means planning out our meals for the week. This not only saves a lot of money by helping to avoid last minute shopping trips and take-away, but also means that even if we’re going to be really busy we can have meals prepared in advance. Try making meals on the weekend and freezing them, or just make way too much extra like we do and eat it for lunch/dinner on another day during the week.
Anyway, give this recipe a go and see how you like it. Meatballs are a perfect meal to store in the freezer as you can quickly and easily heat them up.
Makes approx 30 meatballs and serves 5-6. Simply add more zucchini for extra hungry hippos.
Ingredients
Chicken balls
- Approx 500g minced chicken, or you can mince 3 chicken breast fillets (I got the butcher to mince it fresh)
- 1 cup ricotta
- 1/4 cup almond meal
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
- Salt and pepper
Sauce
- 1 tbs butter
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tbs fresh basil
- 1 tsp chopped oregano, or equiv dried
- 1 sprig thyme
- 1 cup veggie stock
- 2 heaped tbs tomato paste
- 2 x 400g cans diced tomatoes
- 1 tsp coconut sugar
- Plenty of salt and pepper
- 1 large zucchini, grated (for the “spaghetti”)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 225C
- In a large bowl combine the minced chicken with the ricotta, almond meal, garlic, egg, basil and salt and pepper
- Using your hands or a large spoon, mix gently until well combined
- Cover 2 large baking trays with baking paper and set aside
- Use your hands to roll the mixture into small balls and place evenly onto the baking trays
- Bake for approx 15 mins, or until golden on top, then turn the balls over and bake for another 10-15 minutes
Meanwhile
- While the chicken balls are cooking, grate the zucchini into long thin strips and set aside
- Heat the butter in a large frying pan on med-high and cook the onion until translucent
- Add the garlic, bay leaf, oregano and thyme, stirring continuously for another minute
- Add the all the remaining ingredients and allow to simmer for 25-30 mins
- Once the chicken balls are cooked, set them aside and keep them warm until you are happy with the consistency of the sauce
- Add the zucchini spaghetti and desired number of meatballs into the sauce for 2-3 minutes, stirring to make sure the meatballs are covered
- Serve with a sprinkle of parmesan or your favourite cheese
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