This is my love language.
Everything good (in this case: lean turkey veggie meatballs and smooth, tangy tomato sauce with fresh green herbs) tangled up in hot pasta and just exploding with color and texture. *closes eyes and purrs* I seriously love it.
I don’t often make spaghetti and meatballs but I’ve had it on my overcrowded food idea board for a looong time now and I may or may not have just gotten tired of looking at it. Know what I mean? One of the advantages of listing your ideas: getting tired of looking at all the things you haven’t done yet which forces you to follow through. And I’m so so glad this recipe actually happened because both Bjork and I could eat it for every meal all week forever. Well, we ARE eating it all week. I made the recipe twice which resulted in at least 900 little containers of spaghetti and meatballs in the fridge waiting to be packed into a lunchbox.
Not. Complaining.
Here’s the deal.
The reason this recipe is healthier than your average spaghetti and meatballs is because:
- Half of the meatball mixture is chopped veggies.
- The other half of the meatball mixture is lean ground turkey.
- I spy a few whole wheat breadcrumbs, too.
- Unrelated to the meatballs, this is a good time to try low glycemic or gluten free noodles. I’m usually all over the whole wheat pasta but I just can’t do it with spaghetti. But I’ve tried like three different “healthier” spaghetti varieties lately and I’ve been impressed by all of them. SCORE.
- Somebody is going to be ultra healthy and use spaghetti squash in place of the pasta. I am not that person but more power to you, health nut.
So to make this happen, you’ll have to chop up your veggies really small. Like, food processor or bust small. I used those teensy tiny red peppers that everybody loves right now and I just chopped the heck out of them with my food processor. In addition to cutting some calories and packing some nutrition into the meatballs, you are going to get some rockin’ sweet red pepper flavor in your meatballs and you are not going to complain. Because YUM.
Veggies + turkey + whole wheat breadcrumbs + cheese = these.
You guys, the meatballs. Excuse me for yelling but BJORK LOVED THEM.
I loved them too, but I guess I don’t fall for meatballs quite as extremely as he does? I don’t know. It was just ridiculous; he kept walking by the meatball bowl and just popping those little things like candy. And again. And again. And after we completely inhaled our hot plates of spaghetti and meatballs for a nice little Saturday night dinner date at home, he went back for… more meatballs. Just meatballs on the plate.
Okay then.
Between the turkey and veggie meatballs, the sauce (storebought all the way! there’s a generic brand that I love with a short ingredient list, no added sugar, and a super smooth texture so why the heck not?!), the hot sticky spaghetti noodles, and the fresh herbs and freshly grated Parmesan cheese, there’s a lot to luv about this meal. If we were normal people who made recipes more than once, this would forsurely make its way into the permanent weeknight dinners category.
Just so many good vibes right now.
Healthy Spaghetti and Meatballs
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
Description
This recipe for healthy Spaghetti and Meatballs uses lean ground turkey and chopped veggies to make perfect little meatballs.
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 lbs. lean ground turkey
- 2 cups minced mini bell peppers (about 15 mini peppers)
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 3/4 cup Italian seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus extra salt and pepper
- 35 ounces super smooth spaghetti sauce (my preference)
- 16 ounces uncooked spaghetti
- fresh minced parsley and additional cheese for topping
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep the peppers. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs and stir until thick and sticky. Add the bell peppers, turkey and salt. Mix with your hands to really get the mixture incorporated.
- Roll the mixture into meatballs (I did smaller sized meatballs and I was able to make about 50) and place on a greased baking sheet. They WILL stick and brown on the bottom as they bake. Sprinkle the meatballs generously with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the baking sheet and set aside.
- Cook spaghetti according to package directions. Heat the spaghetti sauce in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the meatballs and some fresh parsley; stir gently and cover. Let the mixture simmer until the noodles are done cooking and the sauce is warmed through. Combine the sauce and noodles directly in the pan, or just scoop the sauce on top. Sprinkle with a little cheese for good luck. 😉
Notes
I’ve been buying low glycemic noodles (usually found in the small organic section of my regular grocery store and so so delicious!) and I’ve been buying spaghetti sauce with a short ingredient list and no added sugar. If you can make 50 total meatballs out of the recipe, one serving includes roughly 6 meatballs.
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 45 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: healthy spaghetti recipe, spaghetti and meatballs, meatballs
Is there a video for this?
Hi, Alleyah! Unfortunately we don’t have a video for this recipe.
I made this for dinner tonight and while the direction were simple, and they were definitely meatballs, I felt like it was lacking quite a bit in flavor. I’m curious why no onions or garlic weere included? I felt like that would’ve added so much more to the meatball.
I made these last night, they’re so good! AND I can hide veggies in them for our picky eaters. A great recipe to make for kids and adults alike. And it’s a very versatile recipe, too. I didn’t have ground turkey, parmesan or enough red peppers, so I used ground beef, increased the whole grain bread cumbs, and added leftover Kale ribs, two carrots and a parsnip to the one red bell pepper that I had. And they were awesome! Thanks for sharing, I will definitely make them again.
I think you must have enjoyed that dish very much and that’s why you guys ate it all the week
Wow wow wow!
My husband gave me a food processor for my birthday and we were trying to find something simple and tasty. These are it – although we made one small adjustment. We adjusted the meat to 3/4 lb ground beef and 3/4 lb Italian sausage.
This recipe is so simple, delicious and quick – the most important adjective being delicious.
Thank you so much for sharing your love of food and your food processor with us – my children say you are awesome and I need to try more of your recipes.
The next item is the cinnamon pull apart bread. We can’t wait!
We love hearing that! Glad you enjoyed it!
Is the nutrition for just the meatballs or with the sauce and pasta? Thanks! Can’t wait to try this week!
Wow! This looks great. I looked this recipe up after a picture appeared in an Pinterest ad. Your ingredients made my mouth water! Do you think that onions would make them pop or deter them? My mouth is salivating at the thought of one of those meatballs, I’ve got to make one! Keep those recipes coming!
Hello! I can’t wait to make this! The mini peppers I saw at the grocery said “mini peppers sweet” on the bag and were yellow, red and orange… is this what you used or should I just buy regular bell peppers?
Yep! I used those little ones, but either could work.
Hi Lindsay,
I just made these tonight and they were absolutely delicious! My family devoured them. Next we’re going to try the Creamy Chicken Quinoa & Broccoli Casserole from your Everyday Healthy cookbook. Thanks for the delicious recipes,
Alannah
Mmmm! Thanks Alannah! Hope you like the second one too!
The Rocking Rebel (aka: the boyfriend) and I loved this!! And I know this sounds weird, but we even fed some to our puppy, because she’s not been eating a lot lately and we thought maybe some spaghetti and meatballs would wet her appetite… And it did! 🙂
Thanks for this great recipe!
Hahah – yes! treat that pup right!
Good, but not enough to make this recipe all that healthy as its written. Halve the amount of meat and pasta, replacing volume with diced zucchini and onions to the sauce, maybe swap half the meat balls for a bean of your choice. Add some shredded or diced carrots. Just before serving throw in chopped spinach leaves for color and extra nutrition. The flavor of the sauce should get you the spaghetti experience. You’ll have a spaghetti medley by adding more veggies. There are probably other veggies which would work. Now it’s more healthy! Don’t be afraid of trying more additions.
I want this badly. It’s 7:40am.
Normal, in the food blog world. 😉
Do you mince the peppers in a food processor or by hand? I just made your blueberry sauce this morning for my pancakes. It is better than Ina Garten’s sauce! : )
This looks amazing!! One question: Is the nutritional info for the entire recipe, including the sauce and pasta? If so, is there any way you can provide the nutritional info for just the meatballs?
For 8 servings, each would have 198 calories and 8 grams of fat. I have the full label here so I’ll email it to you. 🙂
Hi Lindsay! Any chance I can jump on the meatball-only bandwagon and get the nutritional label from you? I’m planning on making these for supper tonight and serving over roasted veggies.
All right, go ahead and disregard my request. I made ’em and calculated the nutrition info since I made a couple changes anyway. Instead of bread crumbs, I subbed 3/4 cup cooked quinoa and I accidentally forgot the cheese (the horror!). But, it was delicious and at 6g fat, 7g carb, and 15g protein, pretty doggone nutritious too. Thanks for another great recipe!
hello. this looks amazing!! i’m not sure what kind of mini peppers you are referring to. are they jarred? thanks.
No, they look like this, but bell peppers would work too! 🙂 You would only need a few.
not sure how i didn’t know about these!! thank you 🙂
Does the nutritional information include the pasta or is it just the meatballs?
These meatballs are amazingly flavorful! I used some chicken sausage made by our local grocery store, and holy cow……so so good. 🙂
Great idea! SO glad you liked them! 🙂
I am huge meatball fan. I would be the one stealing them away before dinner. I think the carrots make them more moist too. Great recipe!
Yep, that would be great too!
Comfort food in skinny form?! Where do I sign up?!
Great way to lighten up a hearty Italian meal! I love subbing ground turkey in recipes that call for ground beef…I always make sure to get the dark ground meat instead of light from the meat counter which keeps it from turning out dry.
Please, this is NOT italian. Here in Italy, where I’ve been born and have lived ever since spaghetti with meatballs doesn’t exist. No one would ever dream of making such a thing!!! Nor spaghetti with bolognese sauce: no no no.
“If we were normal people who made recipes more than once…”
I’m so glad we’re not alone in this. Too true.
This is a perfect recipe for me to bookmark after all that Christmas eating I am going to be indulging in. I wonder if you can somehow adapt this to left over cooked turkey. And I love the picture of your meatballs.
Teach me how to photograph pasta! Seriously though, this looks amazing. Sooo amazing.
YES. Just a great big YES to this – I have been obsessed with spaghetti and meatballs lately and I love the idea of a skinner version! Except yeah, I love spaghetti squash but not with meatballs. Just sayin’ 😉
My husband and sons are really gonna love these meatballs (actually I will too :). ) Spaghetti is already a hit with them – so they’ll love it if I make meatballs too!