These turkey meatballs are a great way to use leftover turkey. They get crispy on the outside and soft inside and the flavors combine so well. It’s like having a whole different meal as you can hardly say it’s made from leftover meat.
These meatballs can be served as an appetizer with your favorite dipping sauce, or alongside your favorite side dish, like rice, pasta, or potatoes and also in breakfast sandwiches.
I make pretty often this kind of meatballs, in various combinations. If you want them vegetarian just replace meat with chickpeas, or grated drained zucchini. You can even add some grated cheese if desired. You can make many variations to this recipe and each time makes a wonderful dish. Even the breadcrumbs can be well replaced by rolled oats, in case you want a gluten-free recipe.
I simply love these bite-sized leftover turkey meatballs, they are always a good option for either breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You can serve them with a fresh salad, mashed potatoes, or in tortilla wraps with your favorite sauces, I am pretty sure you will love them too once you give them a try.
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Leftover Turkey Meatballs
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups (250g) cooked turkey , ground
- 2 medium carrots , peeled
- 2 potatoes , (about 300g)
- 3 eggs
- 2 or 3 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 or 3 tbsp fresh parsley , chopped
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- sa and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp olive oil to drizzle on top
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 F (200C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with oil.
- Add leftover cooked turkey in the bowl of a food processor. Process for few seconds until ground.Transfer to a large bowl. Shred the carrots and potatoes on the large holes of the grater or in your food processor. Add them over the ground turkey.
- Add minced garlic, parsley, eggs, oil and breadcrumbs. Add salt and pepper and stir until well combined.
- Form balls with you hands and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten if desired.
- Drizzle some oil over the meatballs and bake for 15- 20 minutes on one side and 15 – 20 minutes on the other side.
- Serve warm alongside your favorite sauce and side dish, like rice, pasta, potatoes, in sandwiches and so on.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
Please let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below and tag @homecookingadventure on Instagram and hashtag it #homecookingadventure.
This looks like the perfect way to use your Thanksgiving left over turkey up 🙂 Looks delicious, will have to try it for sure.
These look so great! What a delicious way to use leftover turkey.
Great idea for leftover turkey Ella! Love it!
These look yummy and I don’t even like turkey very much. Delicious!
What a terrific idea for leftover turkey! I’m always game for a new meatball recipe!
I made these for dinner tonight! They turned out alright, a little dry and maybe a tiny bit bland. Is there a specific sauce you normally serve with them? I served them alongside butternut squash ravioli, which was a good combo, but they definitely needed a sauce.
Yes.. they definitely need a sauce.. I usually use some homemade tomato sauce, like homemade tomato ketchup or chilli jam, or even tzatziki sauce, a hummus might work good as well, avocado salad and the list can go on…You can add some more garlic for extra flavor, the garlic is really important in this recipe. I used like two very large cloves.. but if they are small you can consider using 3-5 cloves. They do go very well with pasta, but I put the meatballs into the prepared pasta sauce.. I also served them alongside rice and vegetable sauce (a simple one made from onions, red peppers, tomato and carrots) or last time we served them with homemade tortillas, tomato sauce and fresh vegetables. My daughters really enjoyed them.
A wonderful idea! Those meatballs look extremely mouthwatering.
Cheers,
Rosa
Made these with leftover turkey I saved in the freezer. Amazing! I added some minced onion for added flavor and some milk as some commented on the meatballs being dry and not very flavorful. So glad I stumbled across this recipe! Serving for Super Bowl snack!!!!
I made this with sweet potato instead of regular potato. It goes perfect with the turkey flavor. Delicious! Thanks for the recipe.
Wonderful recipe. So easy to make and the kids love it????
Thes are utterly delicious, thankyou. We’re eating them again tonight after freezing. I put them straight from the freezer into a 350F/180C oven for 20-25 minutes Andrew served them with mash and salad for the adults and a mini bread roll, cheese and lettuce for the kiddies. Yum!
drooling over these leftover turkey meatballs <3 So amazing
We’re on our second double batch today. Instead of turkey, we use rabbit. Its a great way to get the protein of a beef meatball, and the flavor and fat content of a turkey meatball. We had to sub dried parsley. We used leftover cheesy garlic mashed potatoes instead of grated and dang! It’s a good thing I doubled this because they were gone in a flash. Yum and a huge thanks for this recipe!