Tomato Balsamic Chicken Meatballs

I’m just going to come right out and say it: this is the best new recipe I’ve tried in QUITE a while. Thanks to the wonder that is pinterest, I’ve tried a lot of new recipes lately – and lots of them have been delicious, and have made it onto the permanent menu rotation in our house. However, this one totally takes the cake. It’s super easy to make, SO delicious, fairly versatile, and relatively healthy. Win, win, win, WIN, in my book.

I made some changes, of course, but they were very small.

Tomato Balsamic Chicken Meatballs
makes about 15 meatballs
original recipe here
my pin here

For the meatballs:
1 pound ground chicken (you can sub ground turkey if you’d like)
1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 egg
1 T tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 T heavy cream
1/2 t kosher salt
1/2 t black pepper
1/2 c freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 c + 2 T seasoned breadcrumbs

For the glaze:
1.5 T tomato paste
1.5 T balsamic vinegar
1.5 T olive oil
3/4 tsp sugar

1.) Preheat your oven to 325°. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the parsley, egg, tomato paste, minced garlic, heavy cream (missing from my photos, because I totally forgot about it til the last minute), salt, and pepper.

2.) Add the ground chicken, and gently combine all the ingredients with your hands, being careful not to overwork the meat (just lightly toss everything, and only mix until all the ingredients just come together). Add the breadcrumbs and grated parmesan, and gently mix those with the meat mixture.

3.) Line a baking sheet with foil. Begin rolling your meat mixture into balls – I used a small handful for each meatball, so they were slightly larger than a golf ball. I ended up with 18, but my package of ground chicken was also just slightly over a pound. Place them on the baking sheet, evenly spaced out.

4.) When all the meatballs are rolled, mix together your glaze. Using a silicone brush or the back of a spoon, cover the top of each meatball with a good coating of the glaze.

5.) Bake the meatballs for about 30 minutes, until they are cooked through.

Honestly, I am drooling just THINKING about these meatballs. They were SO GOOD! For dinner, I served them with some risotto and a big salad… but you could also serve them with spaghetti (I would likely toss the spaghetti with olive oil and garlic, and maybe some fresh tomatoes, rather than using a heavy sauce), if you wanted. Additionally, they would make a GREAT appetizer for a party – just make about half the size!

I used the leftovers to make open-face meatballs sandwiches the next day – I cut a ciabatta roll in half, and toasted it in the oven for a few minutes. Then I cut the meatballs in half, and laid them cut side down on the toasted bread… I made up a little more meatballs glaze to brush over the meatballs, and then I topped the whole thing with some muenster cheese and some grated parmesan, and popped it under the broiler for about 3 minutes. HOLY DELICIOUS.

So, yeah, these will be showing up in my household A LOT in the near future. I mean, there was literally about 5 minutes of active prep time, and the results were delicious. That’s my kind of dinner!

More meatballs, please,
Tina

Advertisement