Basic Turkey Meatballs

Turkey is a great substitution for beef when making meatballs. I think if you’re not going to use pork instead of beef, turkey is the next best alternative. There are many times in my household where my husband and I talk about making tacos for dinner and his go-to substitution for ground beef is ground turkey. It has a really great consistency and flavor. This is a simple base recipe for turkey meatballs that go great in so many dishes, and if you’re not into red meat this could be the one you use as a substitute for any of my beef or even lamb meatball recipes.

Meatballs in general are a really easy quick meal to throw together. You can whip up your favorite sauce and steam some veggies and have a quick and easy weeknight meal. You can make this meal even quicker if decide to use tin foil to line your pan. It makes the clean-up after cooking them in the oven nice and quick. Since ground turkey is leaner than the ground beef I use I always make sure I use cooking spray on the pan or tin foil to make sure the meatballs don’t stick. This will save you the headache of trying to get these little balls off the pan once they are done cooking.

These basic meatballs are one of my easier recipes to throw together. I have some much more complicated recipes on this site that include more prep before even making the meatballs. I really love making meatballs and sharing them with others so I don’t mind taking the extra steps and some of the extra time to make some fancy and unexpected meatballs. This recipe is the base for a lot of those turkey meatballs and they are also really quick to throw together.

One thing to keep in mind when working with both ground turkey and ground chicken is that it has a tendency to stick to your hands more than ground beef or ground pork. There are a couple of different ways to help prevent this – one is to have a trusty can of cooking spray handy to spray your hands before working with the meat. Depending on the recipe I can spray my hands a couple of times during the rolling process. I wash my hands in between spraying them if needed. 

The turkey meatballs that are pictured aren’t the most exciting photograph I’ve taken of all of the meatballs that I’ve made over the years but they are delicious. Granted I would never serve them like this but it gives you an idea of what the plain balls themselves look like.

I like working with ground turkey – especially the ground turkey that has a mix of white and dark meat. It makes the meatballs a little moister and it gives them a great flavor. I probably like the mix because I love dark turkey meat. It’s my favorite at Thanksgiving. Give me a little white meat with gravy and a turkey leg and I’m a happy camper.

These meatballs are also a great substitute for beef or pork meatballs – especially if you use ground turkey with dark meat. There are those folks out there that aren’t a fan of eating beef or pork and these meatballs can replace those for any recipe that calls for beef or pork.

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