… with a chance of meatballs

You gotta love the versatility of your basic meatball. Thrown into pasta, stuffed into a sub sandwich, or tossed with a little sauce for the perfect toothpick-ready party food – all options are delish!

And when you substitute ground turkey for the usual beef or pork… you can have your healthy meatball and eat it too.

Originally I hadn’t planned on adding the bread crumbs, but after mixing them together, it felt a little too “wet”. So I added 1/3 cup of panko, and that seemed to do just the trick.

Baked Turkey Meatballs

1 pound ground turkey
1 small onion, peeled and diced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/4 cup roasted, peeled, and seeded jalapeno pepper
1 egg
1 tablespoon honey
1/3 cup panko or seasoned bread crumbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with Silpat mats or foil, if using foil, spray with Pam.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients.

Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Form meatballs and roll into little balls, about 2 tablespoons of mixture per ball.

Place the formed meatballs onto prepared baking sheets, about one inch apart.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.

Serve as appetizers, in a meatball sub, or atop your favorite pasta.

Makes 40 meatballs