Baked Vegetarian Meatballs
These Baked Vegetarian Meatballs make for the perfect meatless, flavorful and delicious meal. They are loaded with nutrients as they are made with fresh veggies, walnuts, and seeds. They're amazing and even meat lovers won't be able to believe they're made with no meat!
Ingredients
- 2 cups shredded zucchini
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 1 cup raw walnuts
- 1/2 cup hemp hearts
- 1 cup flax meal
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp pink salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
Instructions
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Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Line large baking sheet pan with parchment paper.
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Place all ingredients in a food processor bowl. Close lid, start food processor and pulse on high until all ingredients are well blended and combined. Use a spoon or spatula to stir through the mixture. If you see any big chunks of any of the ingredients, close up food processor and pulse again until ingredients are chopped into tiny pieces. Mixture should look almost like a paste.
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Use an ice cream scooper to scoop out mixture and shape into meatballs. With your hands, firmly but gently press the mixture shaping it onto balls that are about 3-4 inches. You should end up with about 12 meatballs. As you shape meatballs, place them on prepped baking sheet pan lining them up next to each other and leaving enough room between them.
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Once all the meatballs are lined up and there is no more mixture left, place meatballs in the oven. Bake for 18 minutes.
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Remove meatballs from the oven. Carefully serve over pasta or zoodles with tomato sauce or any other preferred way. Place any leftover meatballs in any tupperware dish and keep refrigerated for up to 5-7 days.
Recipe Notes
Tips and Substitutions:
- Switch up your veggies- Get creative with your veggies and switch them up. Broccoli, eggplant, mushrooms, sweet potato, etc. are all great to use in this recipe.
- Switch up your nuts- Get creative with the nuts you use too. Pecans and pine nuts are great to use in this recipe as well.
- No flax meal?- Bleached almond flour is a great substitute.
- Use a spoon or spatula to stir through the mixture- If you see any big chunks of any of the ingredients, close up food processor and pulse again until ingredients are chopped into tiny pieces. Mixture should look almost like a paste.
- Be sure to line sheet pan with parchment paper- This will prevent meatballs from sticking to it.
- Shape mixture into which ever size meatballs you'd like- The recipe calls for meatballs to be 3-4 inches and you end up with 12 meatballs this size. However, you can make them bigger or smaller if you'd like and end up with more or less meatballs. Baking time will remain the same.
- Make them vegan friendly- Replace the egg for a vegan egg like a flax egg to make these vegan friendly.