Healthy Meatballs in lip smacking sauce
My niece pestered me to cook meatballs, ever since I took her on a grueling 4.5hr walk one Summer, after which she was treated to meatballs in a tapas in Howth. The thing is, after a 4.5hr walk, everything tastes better than good! How to compete?
Meat is an excellent protein and source of easily absorbable iron and trace minerals BUT too much red meat is linked with bowel cancers and poor health.
I balance out mince meat by adding green lentils that when cooked with meat, look like meat I add plenty of plant foods such as salads or vegetables to the mix to mitigate the risks associated with red meat.
I use the ‘typically 5% fat’ mince meat selling in supermarkets.
Calories: 303 4 meatballs & sauce
Servings: 3 – makes 12 meatballs
| Fibre | Protein | Carbohydrate | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5g | 34g | 28g | 7g |
Ingredients
MEATBALLS
300g, Lean beef mince
400g, tin Bijoux Verts lentils
1 medium red onion
Black Pepper
4 garlic cloves
lotsa fresh herbs or dried – coriander, parsley, sage, oregano, thyme
100ml passata
30g tomato puree
SAUCE
350g passata
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 or 2 red chilli
5g ginger,
1 red pepper, chopped roughly
a shake of smoked paprika
A small bunch of thyme
15g grated parmesan
Black pepper
Method
Heat the oven to 200 degrees
Rinse the tinned lentils in a sieve under a cold tap and leave to drain or they will be soggy
Put all of the meatball ingredients into a bowl and bind together well until you get a smooth and sticky mixture
Using a cereal spoon, scoop out a portion and roll between both palms to form a meat ball. Place the 12 meatballs on a baking tray that has holes on it (like a pizza tray) and place this tray over a baking tray to collect the juices that come off the meatballs as they cook.
Bake for 15 minutes then turn each meatball. Add the juice that comes off the meatballs to the sauce (recipe below) Put the tray back in the oven for final 10 minutes or so. Total cooking time 25 minutes.
To make the sauce, place all the ingredients except the cheese into a saucepan and heat – use a hand blender to blitz into a smooth sauce. After you add the juices that come from the meatballs, bring the sauce back to a gentle boil. Finally stir in the parmesan and season.
Serve With: a large green salad, red onion and grated carrot and 50kcal of a salad dressing (see online recipes) grate a little parmesan on top OR serve with pureed spinach as seen in picture.
