Five-Minute Pesto Parmesan Meatballs

Mariel here. Last week we guest-posted this recipe over at Cheap Recipe Blog, but this week we added it to our own site so it could be easily searched in our Recipe Index.

When my one-year-old son first started eating table food, I was still at a place in my post-partum “adventure” where cooking felt a bit Sisyphean. I’d browse inspiring recipes, print them out, buy all the ingredients and then they’d sit untouched in the fridge. I tended to rely heavily on Whole Foods’ prepared and packaged meals, justifying the sky-high price tag by telling myself it was the next best thing to home-cooking.

One of my son’s favorite meals was spaghetti with pesto-parmesan chicken meatballs from their poultry department. But we ran through the small package pretty quickly and although delicious, they were a lot saltier than I’d like for my little one.

Once I got back into the kitchen in earnest, this was one of the first things I decided to recreate. Since we don’t eat much red meat and because my guy is now drinking cow’s milk, which is lower in iron than formula, I went with beef instead of chicken and sneaked in some spinach.

These are absolutely heavenly, just like “mama” might make and they’re a total snap to prepare. They take all of five minutes of actual hand’s-on time, which feels miraculous when that’s about all the time you have to get dinner ready.

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Pesto-Parmesan Meatballs
Makes 10-12 racquetball-size meatballs

Ingredients:
1 ¼ pound lean ground beef – $3.99
¾ cup Italian-style breadcrumbs – $2.29
1/3-cup basil pesto (homemade or store-bought) – $3.99
¼ cup of finely chopped fresh spinach (I often pulse it in the food processor) – $1.99
¼ cup freshly grated parmesan – $2.25
1 extra large egg, lightly beaten – stock
A pinch of salt and pepper – stock
Grand total assuming “well-stocked” kitchen: $14.51
Cost per meatball: $1.20

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly with your (clean) hands. Roll the meatball mixture into racquetball-size balls (somewhere between a golf ball and a tennis ball). Place meatballs onto prepared baking sheet, spacing about 1-2 inches apart

3. Bake for 10 minutes then flip and bake for another 10 minutes, or until cooked through. Serve alone or atop spaghetti with marinara