This creamy lemon turkey meatball pasta is packed full of fresh and juicy meatballs, silky tagliatelle and a zingy lemon crème fraîche sauce.
Recipe inspo
These meatballs are insanely good! Even if I do say so myself.
I’m a big fan of making meatballs from scratch and have been experimenting with them for a while. Whether it’s the meat – beef, pork, turkey or chicken. Trying different ways to cook them – pan fried, baked, poached or a combination. As well as different sauces from the traditional marinara to the Swedish variety that uni students love from IKEA.
This creamy lemon turkey meatball pasta recipe has been my favourite of all my experiments so far. The turkey meatballs are baked rather than fried, fresh and light, and gave me another excuse to put my breadcrumbs of dreams recipe to good use.
Paired with silky tagliatelle, al dente broccoli and a slightly tangy lemon garlic and crème fraîche sauce, they’re a match made in heaven.
What goes into these turkey meatballs?
Why take the time to make your own meatballs I hear you ask? Because it is absolutely worth it!
Homemade meatballs are 10x better than shop bought and you’ll know exactly what’s going in them. And with this recipe in particular, the meatballs and sauce are made for each other. It’s a whole meatball/sauce lovefest going on.
Ingredients
- Turkey thigh mince: usually containing between six to eight percent fat, using turkey thigh mince keeps these meatballs beautifully juicy. I’ve made them with turkey breast mince before and while still delicious, they’re not quite as tasty.
- Onion: finely diced and gently fried in olive oil, onions are an important ingredient in these meatballs bringing plenty of flavour and texture
- Egg: binding it all together, eggs are a meatballs best friend and helps to keep them in shape. You only need one though – any more and they’d be too wet to form balls.
- Breadcrumbs of dreams: breadcrumbs stop meatballs from becoming dry and keep them succulent. I highly recommend you try my Italian sourdough breadcrumbs in this recipe as they are incredible and add tons of flavour.
- Lemon zest: adding lemon zest makes these meatballs fresh and zingy. It also ties in perfectly with the sauce.
- Parmesan: a good grating of this salty cheese will help to season the meatballs and add a slightly nutty flavour
- Flat leaf parsley: finely chopped parsley will bringing herby and peppery goodness, don’t skip it!
Mix and roll
Once you’ve chucked all of these ingredients into a bowl, make sure you get your hands in there to mix it all together. Using your hands instead of combining with a spoon will make sure you don’t over mix and keep your meatballs from turning into a paste.
Then you roll into 20 balls and off you go. And if you’re like me, you use the scales to do so… as I’m probably too meticulous with my meatballs. Down to the last gram. The one’s photographed were 33.5 grams per meatball in case you were interested.
Now all I need is my oven back and I’ll be making these straight away! What do you think of them? I’d love to know in the comments below or over on Instagram @somethingwithflavour.
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Creamy lemon turkey meatball pasta
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
This creamy lemon turkey meatball pasta is packed full of fresh and juicy meatballs, silky tagliatelle and a zingy lemon crème fraîche sauce.
Ingredients
Turkey meatballs
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- ½ white onion, finely diced
- 500 grams turkey thigh mince
- 1 egg
- 30 grams Italian sourdough breadcrumbs (or shop bought breadcrumbs)
- 1 lemon, zest
- 20 grams parmesan, finely grated
- Big handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
- Salt and pepper
Sauce
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 300 ml chicken stock
- 150 grams crème fraîche
- 1 lemon, juice
- Salt and pepper
Pasta
- 320 grams fresh tagliatelle / 200 grams dried tagliatelle
- 200 grams broccoli, chopped into small florets
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 200C.
- Turkey meatballs: heat 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and fry the onion for 5 minutes until softened. While the onion is cooking, add the rest of the ingredients into a bowl. Add the onions to the mixture and get your hands in there to combine the ingredients together.
- Once the meatball ingredients have been combined, roll into 20 individual meatballs and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the meatballs are golden and cooked through.
- Sauce: heat 1 teaspoon of olive oil in the frying pan over a medium heat and gently cook the garlic for 30 seconds to 1 minute until fragrant and slightly golden. Pour in the chicken stock and allow to bubble until reduced by half – approx 5 minutes. Turn down the heat to low and stir through the crème fraîche until it makes a thick creamy sauce. Add in the lemon juice and a good grind of salt and pepper.
- Tagliatelle: cook the tagliatelle according to the package instructions until al dente.
- Broccoli: boil the broccoli for 3-4 minutes until cooked through but still firm.
- Assemble: add your cooked meatballs, tagliatelle and the broccoli to the sauce and stir until the sauce has coated everything.
- Serve straight away with a sprinkling of parmesan and parsley.
Notes
To make it easy to split your meatballs, weigh them out as you go. I find the ingredients mean it’s approximately 34 grams per meatball.
If the meatballs are a little soft once rolled, pop in the fridge for 15 minutes to firm up before baking in the oven.
I like to bake my meatballs over 2 trays to spread them out a little – I find they cook better and release less fat while baking this way.
I’ve tried this recipe with turkey breast mince and while still delicious, the meatballs don’t come out as juicy as they do with turkey thigh mince. However, if you’re macro conscious and you did want to make the swap, it increases the protein content by 7 grams and reduces the fat content by 6 grams.
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Various
- Cuisine: Italian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 portion
- Calories: 581
- Sugar: 3.6g
- Sodium: 402mg
- Fat: 26.4g
- Carbohydrates: 46.3g
- Fiber: 4.1g
- Protein: 39.3g
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