Turkey meatballs in marinara sauce

A Whole30 compliant, comforting meal of turkey meatballs in marinara sauce, full of flavor and veggies – great for any season!

I’m really enjoying branching out of my normal meal recipes and trying out new ideas.  I’ve often thought about making just meatballs, and have on occasion used something similar to my basic burger recipe (see here) and just made them smaller.  I love using a tomato based sauce over pasta with meatballs, but am also quite as happy having them over mashed potatoes or rice.  

As I started my Whole30, I looked around for some meatball recipes that I could try out.  And found this one – using a slow cooker, which was perfect since our Sunday mornings  are usually chaotic and any meals I can get started in the morning using the slow cooker, means when we come home from church with dinner guests (a very frequent occurrence!), I’m not stressing about cooking a decent meal.  This recipe was originally from Paleo Running Momma (see her website here) and obviously I adapted as I went through.

Now you can have these turkey meatballs just as they are (using toothpicks, which is always a favorite in our house!), over some sort of pasta / veggie noodles such as zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash, or mashed potatoes, or however you wish!

Feel free to experiment with this – I am fully in support of trying new flavors and tastes in any of my recipes.  But if you do try it, please just let me know and what you thought!

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Turkey meatballs in marinara sauce

(Paleo, Whole30, gluten-free, dairy-free)

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 4 hours

Servings 6

Ingredients

For the meatballs

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 egg
• 2 tbs almond flour
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 1 tbs oregano
• 1 tbs basil
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

For the sauce

• 1 14 oz tin diced tomatoes
• 1 6 oz tin tomato paste
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2 tbs chopped fresh garlic
• 2 tbs oregano leaves
• 1 small zucchini diced
• 2 carrots diced
• 1 cup spinach coarsely chopped

Instructions

1. Place the meat in a large mixing bowl, add the egg, and almond flour, onion powder, garlic salt and herbs and mix well with your hands. Mix until just combined together - do not overmix.

2. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat the broiler. Form the meat mixture into tablespoon-sized balls and arrange on the baking sheets.

3. Broil 2-4 minutes to lightly brown and release a small amount of fat.
4. Add all sauce ingredients, except the spinach, to the slow cooker and mix. Gently add in the meatballs and stir carefully.
5. Cover and cook for 4 hours on low.
6. Once ready, stir in the spinach and serve over spaghetti squash, roast veggies, potatoes etc.