Meatless Monday – “Meatless” Balls

I don’t normally follow Meatless Monday on purpose, but sometimes it happens that I do all vegetarian meals.  We were out yesterday for breakfast and there was Rachael Ray’s magazine there, so I was reading that. I have never read her magazine before and there sure are a lot of recipes in it! LOL.  Anyway, I saw this one and thought just the meatball portion would be good.  She calls for grinding almonds in a food processor and thought “Why not just use almond flour?”  Especially since I have a 5 pound bag of it!  :mrgreen:  I also left out the lemon zest.

These are gluten free and grain free! They came out good.  I had mine on GF pasta:

They were quite easy to make.

Ingredients:

  • 2 oz of almonds, ground fine in a food processor *or* 2 ounces of almond flour.
  • 1 can of chick peas (15 oz), drained and rinsed
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 oz of shredded mozzarella cheese (3/4 cup)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a bowl, mash together the eggs and chick peas with a potato masher until just some chunks remain.

It will be mostly liquid with small chunks of chickpeas.  Kind of like oatmeal, I guess?

Now add in the almond meal, cheese, salt and pepper:

Mix well.

Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment and spray with cooking spray.  Divide the mixture into 12 equal portions and form into balls.  I weighed out about 40 grams for each meatball.

Place onto baking sheet.

Mist lightly with cooking spray.  Then bake for 25 minutes.

The texture of these is very much like meatballs, especially when covered with sauce.  I liked these quite a bit.  Very mild in flavor and I think you could do some fun things like adding green chilies or sun-dried tomatoes.  2 meatballs makes a good and filling serving amount.

Nutritional Stats:

Makes 12 meatballs. Per meatball:  108 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 4 grams of protein. 

20 thoughts on “Meatless Monday – “Meatless” Balls

  1. Alison

    These look awesome and easy. Love! Thanks for sharing.

    We’re trying to be better about meal planning during the week and I love dinner ideas that are gluten-free and quick!

  2. debby

    Well, since I don’t like regular meatballs, and I don’t like chickpeas, I guess I’ll pass on this one. I have to admit, they look delicious and exotic. They actually look like some kind of fried Japanese tidbit!

  3. Fran

    You know sometimes I think about even when I’m not reading your blog 🙂 and last week I thought: Lori doesn’t often eat pasta and what happens: she has pasta 🙂

    Looks good Lori.

  4. Katy A

    I can’t wait to try these!! I don’t have almond flour but I do have lots of coconut flour!! I wonder if that would work! LOL 🙂

  5. Dee

    Thanks for this recipe…we do something similar that we call Golden Patties…garbanzos, egg, basil and bread crumbs…form into patties and pan fry with a little cooking spray. The mix keeps well a few days in the fridge, so it’s easy to make a couple when you want.

Comments are closed.