Turkey Meatballs
on Jul 29, 2022, Updated Apr 01, 2024
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Looking for an easy baked turkey meatball recipe? This recipes is so easy to make, baking them is very hands-off and time savvy, and they are full of flavor.
Use these turkey meatballs in your favorite spaghetti sauce , in pesto pasta, or for any other recipes that call for meatballs.
Everyone loves meatballs, but have they tried turkey meatballs? They’re equally delicious with a lighter feeling texture that will be sure to please even the pickiest eaters!
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Easy to make
- Ingredients we often have on hand, or are easy to get at the store
- Bakes quickly
- Delicious!
Recipe Ingredients
- Ground turkey: you can use the fresh or frozen kind, just let it thaw all the way before working with it.
- Bread crumbs: these help to bind the turkey together so that the meatballs don’t fall apart while cooking. If you can’t do gluten you can substitute the bread crumbs for gluten free bread crumbs, ground oatmeal, or gluten free crackers crumbs
- Eggs: these also help everything to stick together and improve the texture of the meatballs
- Onion diced: this is adding lots of flavor to our meatballs, make sure that you dice the onion up nice and small so that it doesn’t stop your meatball from sticking together. Large pieces of onion will encourage meatballs that fall apart
- Seasonings: Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper are the seasonings that I used, feel free to add what you might like
See recipe card below for full instructions on ingredients and quantities
Expert Tips & Tricks
- If you want to roll the meatballs in your hands to make them a little more round, get your hands wet first. Damp hands help the turkey to not stick to them.
- Baking meatballs instead of cooking them on the stove means that you don’t have to babysit them in the pan (big time saver) and because you aren’t moving them around in the pan to cook evenly, they don’t fall apart as easily.
- I love to serve these with our favorite as meatballs subs on this homemade sub bread, or with spaghetti squash and meatballs.
How to Make Turkey Meatballs
- This couldn’t be easier! Simple stir all of your ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Use a cookie scoop to scoop out meatballs and place them in a well greased baking dish.
- If you want the meatballs to be very round, you can pick them up and roll them between your hands to make them even more round.
- Bake and enjoy!
Toss leftover turkey meatballs in an air-tight container. It can keep in the fridge for up to 5 days, or the freezer for one to two months.
To reheat allow frozen meatballs to thaw fully in the fridge. Place cold meatballs in a shallow skillet to reheat with a little water in the bottom. Cover with a lid and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes.
The egg in the recipe works as a binder to keep it all together. But also make sure to chop your onions very small because bigger pieces of onion tend to make the meatballs fall apart.
More Recipes to Consider:
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Turkey Meatballs Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground turkey
- 3/4 cups bread crumbs
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 1 small onion diced small
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and spray a 9×13 inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl add the ground turkey, bread crumbs, eggs, diced onion, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
- Stir to combine without over mixing.
- Using a cookie scoop (a 2 tablespoon or medium scoop), scoop out the meat mixture and and place it in the prepared baking dish. Repeat until all of the meat mixture is used.
- If you want to, you can roll the balls into more uniformed circles with your hands but that’s up to you. The oil residue from the pan that is now on the bottom of the meatball helps them not stick to your hands as much.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until an instant read thermometer reads 165 degrees. F.
- Remove from the over and serve hot.
Notes
- You can serve these like you would any meatball. Add them to a tomato sauce and serve over pasta, use in your favorite meatball sandwich, or make party meatballs with them. Sometimes I just makes and serve them like mini meatloaf and don’t do anything to them besides put them on the table.
- You can use homemade bread crumbs if you have them (I just pulse the tail ends of bread in my food processor when they are getting old, great way to use odds and ends of loaves). You can also use store bought plain bread crumbs or panko bread crumbs.
- I’ve had good luck using ground oats in place the bread crumbs in this recipe (which can make it gluten free if you use gluten free oats). Just place your oats in the blender or food process then measure out what you need from the ground oats.
- I prefer this baked method to make them in a skillet. I find they come out more moist and they don’t fall apart.
