Baked Turkey Meatballs with Zoodles

Food trend alert! I can’t help but share my love for the spiralizing craze. Zucchini noodles in particular (or zoodles) have become an almost weekly part of our rotating menu. I think I am drawn to them because they are so neutral, but flavorful and lend themselves well to different recipes – plus they are so quick to make!

Let’s take a step back. I am talking about making noodles out of vegetables, so for example we are now eating spaghetti and meatballs sans the traditional spaghetti. Not only is this a grain-free, low-carb alternative to pasta, but it is delicious. All you really need is either a mandolin or a spiralizer of some type. You can go Veggetti, Spiralizer, or use a Kitchen Aide attachment (my new found love). All of these will make beautiful noodles and they are available in a wide price range.

With this tool in hand lots of recipes are possible, but today we have a very simple baked meatball recipe served over some lightly season zucchini noodles. I got to do some extra testing with this recipe by making it for a cooking class that I teach once a month at a local diabetes education center. It is part of a series of classes offered by the hospital and anyone is welcome.

It was a great experience to get some in-person feedback from the participants on this recipe. My favorite parts of these classes are the suggestions, questions, and general conversation about nutrition and meal planning. It is a great part of my job and I love all the enthusiasm the participants bring. Even though I was a little embarrassed that I under-estimated the oven quality in our classroom and everyone had to wait for the meatballs a little longer than expected, they were patient and thankfully were not disappointed!

I am truly grateful to get to spend some evenings with people that are motivated to learn new things about food and nutrition, and also are looking to incorporate healthier cooking or just cook with more balance.

Some additional information from the class questions include:

• What gives this recipe so much potassium? The zucchinis – they have about 324mg of potassium per ½ cup chopped.
• Can you make the noodles ahead of time? Yes – you can spiralizer the noodles in advance, keep them raw and store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 – 4 days. Some water may build up, so just pat dry before cooking.
• Can you add marinara sauce to this recipe? Yes, any add pasta sauce you like. You don’t need much as with traditional pasta because the zucchini will release some water.
• Can you freeze the zucchini? Not ideal – zucchini has too much water content to be frozen raw, so it gets really mushy when you thaw it. If you blanch chopped zucchini (about 30 seconds in boiling water), don’t add salt, shock in ice water to stop the cooking, then drain and freeze – this will work better for when you have a lot of zucchini that you don’t want to go to waste.