Tonight's Dinner: Oven Baked Turkey Meatballs

I adapted this from the newest Giada De Laurentiis cookbook "Weeknights with Giada." She uses beef in hers, I used turkey. I also used nutritional yeast for half the parmesan cheese, as I am trying to use less dairy in Trevor's meals. His allergist suggested that I try and cut most of it out - he can have some here-and-there He isn't allergic to dairy BUT it isn't good for asthmatics, which he is (he has Cough Variant Asthma, mainly in the Winter but sometimes in the Spring too.)

Anyway, these came out excellent. Everyone loved them. Giada uses the meatballs as Sliders. I cooked them in the oven and then threw them in some homemade marinara (for another post) and put it over rice (hubby doesn't like meatballs with spaghetti for some weird reason.) I got raves from them. I will make them again. This is what I did to adapt the recipe:

1/4 cup cornflakes, ground up

1 tbsp fresh italian parsley, chopped

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp low sugar ketchup*

1 tbsp nutritional yeast**

1 tbsp romano cheese, freshly grated

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

12 oz ground turkey***

26 oz homemade marinara sauce, for serving

Place an oven rack in the center of the oven.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment (or foil).

In a medium bowl, stir together the corn flake crumbs, parsley, egg, oil, ketchup, nutritional yeast (or 2 tbsp romano) and romano cheese, salt and pepper. Add the turkey and gently mix together (hands are your best tool.) With damp hands, roll the mixture into 12 even meatballs. Place on prepared baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, until cooked through.

Preheat some marinara sauce in a large skillet. Add meatballs and coat with sauce. Let it come to a simmer. Turn off and serve over spaghetti OR rice.

Risa's notes:

*original recipe just calls for ketchup. I only use the low sugar ketchup.

**original recipe calls for 2 tbsp pecorino romano cheese. I used half nutritional yeast to up the vitamins in our meals and also to cut out some dairy for Trevor.

***original calls for 8 oz ground beef, 96% lean

Yield: 4 servings