Baked Turkey and Spinach Meatballs

I am an umbrella assassin.

There’s just no other term for it. No matter how many umbrellas I buy, no matter how cheap or expensive they are, they never last more than a few months. Inevitably the fabric starts to separate from the spokes (…I’ve decided the metal parts are called spokes), the open/close mechanism refuses to open/close, and the entire thing just snaps inside-out at the slightest gust of wind.

One morning a few weeks ago, my umbrella broke literally five feet from my apartment door. I was forced to make the rest of my commute holding the mangled fabric of the umbrella corpse over my head, struggling for some semblance of shield from the increasing downpour. Not only did that attempt fail, but the runoff from my dying umbrella streamed right down the sleeve of my coat in the process.

These meatballs have nothing to do with umbrellas, or rain. But if you have the kind of luck I do when it comes to umbrellas and rain storms, you might need a quintessential comfort meal to stick in the oven upon your sopping return home.

These meatballs? They’re just that. Leaner than their beef brothers thanks to the ground turkey and packing a nutritious veggie punch from the spinach, a few of these atop a plate of whole wheat pasta will make you forget about your squishy socks. Promise.

Turkey and Spinach Meatballs
Adapted from How Sweet It Is

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground turkey, 97% lean
• 1/3 cup parmesan-asiago cheese
• 1/4 cup Italian-seasoned bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 10-oz package frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 3 cups jarred marinara sauce (or homemade, if you’re so talented), divided

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and spray a 9×13 glass Pyrex pan with cooking spray.
2. Add ground turkey, cheese, bread crumbs, egg, oil, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper to a large bowl. Combine with a fork, then fold in spinach and use your hands to finish combining. Don’t overmix!
3. Pour 2 cups of marinara sauce into the bottom of the pan. Roll medium-sized meatballs–mine were about 2 to 2 1/2 tbsp worth of mixture. Place the meatballs in rows on top of the sauce.
4. Sprinkle additional cheese and bread crumbs over the top of the meatballs.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until meatballs are cooked through (you should be able to slice into one and see no pink remaining).
6. Serve over whole wheat pasta with reserved 1 cup of sauce. Enjoy!

Makes 15-18 meatballs, depending on how large you roll them.

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