MEATBALLS IN RICH
TOMATO, GARLIC AND GREEN ONION SAUCE
These delicious and very flavorful meatballs in a rich tomato, garlic and green onion sauce make an unforgettable meal. They are great served over zucchini pasta or spaghetti squash. They are also super just simply on their own with some fantastic sides such as cauli mash and green beans.
You can even double this recipe and freeze some for another day. You can use fresh tomatoes, but canned tomatoes give a much more intense flavor.
If you want to add Mozzarella cheese on top and have melty cheese all over the meatballs, you can certainly do that.
This is definitely what one would call down-home cooking and comfort food for a nice, rainy day or even a cold, snowy day. Perfect to come home to, so prepping this meal on the weekend is ideal to keep things easy during the week when one is tired from work.
You could use tomato sauce instead of diced, canned tomatoes, if preferred; however, you can also blend the diced tomatoes before using - you can blend them coarsely, if desired, to leave some texture.
I didn't use onions in this dish as it is just extra carbs we don't need. It is a dish already very rich in tomato and thus the carbs are moderate for this meal, but good carbs, for sure.
No need for breadcrumbs to hold the meatballs together. Use my bake mix or coconut flour. I have a ton of meatball recipes on my blog. This one is up there as one of my favorites. It is tough to choose just one that I love the most. You could serve these garnished with fresh parsley instead of green onions.
You can serve this meal with your favorite salad. There is no law that says you need to serve it with mashed cauliflower or a pasta substitute. These are tender, very flavorful meatballs that would go very well with a simple salad and your favorite salad dressing.
You can change up the flavor of the meatballs a bit by substituting 1 lb of ground pork for the ground beef. Of course, you can even make them turkey or chicken meatballs, but I like the recipe as written, to be honest. The next day to heat leftover meatballs, you can nuke them in the microwave oven. Keep them in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Meatballs:
2 lbs lean ground beef (0.9 kg)
1/4
cup Gluten-Free Bake Mix 2, (60 mL)
OR 2 tbsp coconut
flour (30 mL)
1/4
cup chopped green onions (60 mL)
2 tsp minced garlic (10 mL)
2 large eggs
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese (30 mL)
2 tsp salt (10 mL)
1/2
tsp black pepper (2 mL)
2 tbsp olive oil, divided (30 mL)
Spicy Tomato Garlic and Green Onion Sauce:
1 tbsp olive oil (15 mL)
1 tbsp minced garlic (15 mL)
2, 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes (822 g)
1/4
cup tomato paste (60 mL)
2 tsp dried parsley (10 mL)
1 tsp dried basil (5 mL)
1/2
tsp dried oregano (2 mL)
1/2
tsp red pepper flakes (2 mL)
1/2
tsp seasoning salt (2 mL)
1 cup water (250 mL)
1/2
cup chopped green onions, PLUS (125 mL)
extra for garnish
Instructions:
Meatballs: In large bowl, place ground beef. Add Gluten-Free
Bake Mix 2, OR coconut flour and garlic. In medium bowl, whisk eggs with Parmesan
cheese, salt and black pepper. Add to
ground beef mixture. Using disposable
plastic gloves mix everything together well. Using a regular-sized ice cream
scoop {about 1/4 cupfuls (60 ml)} form uniformly-sized
meatballs. Pack the meat into the ice
cream scoop.
In
large, nonstick frying pan, in 1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil and over medium heat
fry half the meatballs for 4 minutes, turn and fry the other side 4 minutes,
turn again and cook a further 3 minutes.
Set aside. Repeat with remaining
meatballs. Once they are cooked add the
meatballs that were set aside. Space
them nicely and pour the Spicy Tomato Garlic and Green Onion Sauce over the
meatballs. Simmer 10 minutes over medium low heat. Place meatballs and sauce in serving dish and
garnish with additional chopped green onions.
Spicy Tomato Garlic and Green Onion Sauce: In large,
nonstick saucepan, fry garlic for a couple of minutes in olive oil. Add diced tomatoes, tomato paste, parsley,
basil, oregano, red pepper flakes and seasoning salt. Stir in water. Cook over medium heat until sauce is as thick
as you would like it. Add green onions
and simmer 5 minutes. If you like you can mash the tomatoes with a potato
masher or chop with a spatula to make the tomato bits smaller. If you really don’t like tomato pieces, you
can blend the tomatoes before making the sauce.
Set sauce aside once cooked. If
sauce is too thick, stir in some water until it is as thin as you would like it
to be.
Yield: 18 meatballs
6
servings (3 each)
486.3
calories
34.1
g protein
33.8
g fat
1.9 g fiber
9.2
g net carbs
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