Turkey Florentine Meatballs

A close-up of the meal. Topped with some additional freshly grated parm.

Tonight I made turkey meatballs -- with tons of spinach inside.  They were amazing. I made my own marinara sauce to go with them and just cooked up some spaghetti.  We had a small salad with it and it was an all-around great meal.

These meatballs stayed nice and moist and had a great flavor from the spinach.  These would be great in a cream sauce or a tomato-based sauce like I made.  We ate about half of the meatballs so we'll have enough leftovers -- if Jeremy doesn't get to them tonight.  I made one pound of whole wheat spaghetti to go with this so we have about half of the pasta left over as well.

I was using 85% lean ground turkey for these meatballs.  They were really easy to put together since it just took some mixing and baking.  It's also possible to fry them in a frying pan but that takes a lot more work than just throwing them on a baking sheet.

I used fresh spinach leaves for this since I had a lot of spinach in the fridge that I wanted to use up.  You could certainly substitute chopped frozen spinach and get the same result.

These meatballs were nice and garlicky.  I used about half a head of garlic -- you could certainly cut back on that if you don't like garlic as much as I do.  These weren't spicy to us but you could cut back or eliminate the crushed red pepper flake if you're sensitive to spicy foods.  They would still be delicious without it.

Overall, this was a great meal -- and it didn't take too long to pull together.  I will definitely be making these meatballs again.

The raw meatballs, moments before they hit the oven.

Recipe:
1 lb. lean ground turkey
1 c. cooked, drained, and chopped spinach*
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flake
1 tbs. dried parsley flakes
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 c. plain breadcrumbs
2 tbs. olive oil
1 large egg

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients.  Mix until everything is combined and evenly distributed.
3. Roll the balls into 1" meatballs and evenly space them on a large baking sheet. (I got 28 meatballs out of this.)
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the internal temperature is 165 degrees (there shouldn't be any pink remaining in the center).
(The meatballs are ready to eat now... if you want.  I simmered mine in the sauce for approximately 20 minutes before serving with the spaghetti.)

* I started with about 3 cups of fresh baby spinach leaves.  I cooked them in the microwave for 5 minutes with a little water, just to wilt them.  Then I let them cool slightly before squeezing the liquid out and chopping them into itsy-bitsy pieces.  You could use 1 c. frozen chopped spinach, just defrost and squeeze the liquid out.