Combine the pork, lamb, beef, spinach, cheese, egg, basil, parsley, garlic powder, salt, red pepper flakes, and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs in a large mixing bowl. But I find that if you make sure there is sufficient sauce surrounding each meatball (so that they’re not touching) they simmer and cook fine without the browning step. This recipe is an exception to the rule because it’s made with a homemade BBQ sauce, so we were all over it!
I’ve been making Luisa’s (I make seven pounds and freeze off in batches for two meatball nights, they plunk into sauce quite nicely, Marcella’s obvi). But even if spaghetti or meatball sandwiches aren’t your thing, I have shared other ways you can use these Baked Turkey Meatballs with Spinach right after the recipe.
You can serve them with anything that makes you happy — alone with a side of greens or salad, tossed with spaghetti but whatever you do, please do not do either of the following (unquestionably authentic) things: 1. Bake them parmesan”-style the way you son likes from a local pizza place, i.e. with mozzarella and crunchy crumbs on top or 2. Find out what they taste like with a side of garlic bread or 3. Both, scooping one onto the other to form something of an open-faced meatball sub.
Quickly whip up this meatball meal by squeezing the stuffing out of Italian sausages and rolling it into tiny balls. But she also has diners with dietary restrictions, which led her to create a gluten-free chicken meatball. I tried your recipe a couple of months ago and fell in love with these cauliflower bites!
For your own, seek out top-drawer ground meat, ask the butcher to do a custom grind, or grind your own mix (see recipe). Jamie Oliver has one for meatballs with fresh fennel sauce that I’m also partial to, though it’s more the sauce than the meatball that makes it.