- Hey, guys.
Today, I'm gonna show you how to make
these garlicky, herby turkey meatballs
that are simmered in the most delicious maple mustard sauce.
This is a favorite recipe during the fall and winter months,
and the beauty of turkey meatballs
is that they're leaner meat,
so they'll fill you up without weighing you down.
The meatballs themselves are infused
with fresh rosemary and thyme,
and when they do a little swim in that sweet mustardy sauce,
they become highly addictive.
You can serve them up as a bite-sized appetizer
or a full meal over rice, zucchini noodles,
or any kind of vegetable mash,
so let me show you how to make them.
To get started, pull the leaves off of several stems
of fresh thyme and rosemary.
For the thyme,
you can usually just run your hand down a stem
from top to bottom,
but if there's little side shoots,
just pull the leaves off of those,
and for the rosemary,
it's much easier to pluck the leaves right off.
You'll need about one and a half teaspoons
of finely chopped rosemary
and one and a half teaspoons of finely chopped thyme.
Now, you can use dried herbs in this recipe as well,
though I do prefer fresh,
but if you use dried, go with half a teaspoon of each.
The beauty of this recipe is how simple it is,
and unlike many recipes
that have lots of slicing and dicing,
the only other item you have to prep is an onion,
and you'll want to finely dice half of an onion.
After I've chopped the onion,
I like to run my knife through it a couple of times
to make sure it's really finely diced,
so that the onion sort of melts into the meatballs.
That way, you get lots of little bits of onion in each bite,
rather than a few large chunks.
To mix the meatballs together,
you'll need one and a half pounds of ground turkey.
I'm using turkey breast meat,
but you could use light or dark meat.
It's up to you.
To that, add one lightly beaten egg
and the onion that you just chopped up,
plus a quarter cup of almond flour,
four minced garlic cloves,
because garlic makes everything taste better,
the one and a half teaspoons each
of rosemary and thyme you chopped up,
one teaspoon of kosher salt,
and half a teaspoon of black pepper.
Then just dig in with your hands
and mix everything together.
You want to make sure that the onion, garlic, and herbs
are well blended into the turkey meat,
but you don't want to over-mix it either,
so it should look about like this.
To form the meatballs,
I use my medium cookie scoop, which I'll link to below,
and this is great,
as it keeps all the meatballs uniform in size.
Roll the meatballs in your hands,
and if you notice them sticking,
just add a little water to your hands.
They tend to stick more if the meat is room temperature,
so it's best to work quickly and use ground turkey
that's really cold and chilled from the fridge.
You should get about 30 meatballs from this recipe,
or six servings of five meatballs each.
And just keep rolling them up until all the meat is gone
and then place them on a plate to take over to the stove.
All right, let's cook up these turkey meatballs.
Add two tablespoons of olive oil
to a large pan on medium heat,
and then give the pan a little swirl
to make sure that the bottom is coated.
Add the meatballs to the pan,
and of course, I just use my hands to plop them in,
as it's the fastest.
You will have to cook the meatballs in two batches
so that you don't crowd the pan,
and once you've got the first batch in,
just brown them on all sides,
which should take about five to eight minutes.
To flip them over, I just use a large spoon
and sort of roll them to their side
to cook for a minute or so,
then roll them to another side and keep doing this.
When they're done,
they should be mostly golden on the outside
and fully cooked through.
Use your spoon to remove them to a plate,
and that first batch is just gonna hang out
while you repeat the process again with the second batch.
If you feel like you need to add
another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan,
go ahead and do that.
Then add the remaining meatballs.
Cook them through just as you did the first batch,
and then remove them to the plate with the other meatballs.
(cheerful music)
Now, your pan might look kind of burnt and grungy,
but that's okay.
It's actually delicious flavor
that's going to enhance the maple mustard sauce.
So to get that flavor off of the bottom,
add one cup of turkey or chicken broth,
which will deglaze the pan,
and you can use your spatula to scrape the bottom clean.
Add a quarter cup of Dijon mustard,
a quarter cup of maple syrup,
and two tablespoons of mayonnaise.
The mayo imparts an almost aioli-like flavor to the sauce
that's really delicious.
Use a whisk to mix the sauce together,
and it may look clumpy at first,
but as it warms up and simmers, it will come together,
so just keep whisking.
Add all of the meatballs back to the pan,
roll them around in the sauce,
and let them simmer for a couple of minutes
to warm the meatballs back up
and reduce the sauce ever so slightly.
This sauce really evokes all those autumn vibes,
and it's the perfect combination
of savory from the spiced Dijon mustard
and sweet from the maple syrup.
Meatballs are always a great holiday recipe
to serve up as an appetizer with toothpicks,
but as I mentioned in the intro,
it's also great as a full meal
over rice, zucchini noodles, or mashed potatoes,
essentially anything that will soak up that extra sauce.
Before serving, I always love to add
a little bit more chopped fresh thyme and rosemary,
because that pop of green
not only makes everything look better,
but also tastes better.
Now, I was super excited to dig into this recipe
for the taste test,
and thought I could plop a whole meatball in my mouth,
but that ended up not being such a great idea,
and clearly not very photogenic.
So on take two,
I took a much more appropriately-sized bite for the camera.
I hope you guys enjoy this recipe,
and if you do make, sure to give it a thumbs up,
share it with your family and friends,
and I will see you again in the next video.
(upbeat music)