I love to cook. I've made some great meals in my time and most of the really great ones involved some meat or seafood. Ribeye, scallops, tuna or even chicken or pork. But this vegetarian meatball recipe is in my top 10 for sure. I sourced the crux of the recipe via the video I link to below. I modified some of the ingredients, but it's basically the same.
Ingredients for 16 small meatballs with my changes from video:
1.5 pound white mushrooms, chopped into very small pieces
2 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt to sauté mushrooms
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup minced shallots (video uses onion)
4 minced garlic cloves
1/2 cup instant oatmeal
1/2 cup (oat bran) video calls for bread crumbs
packed 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (video says parsley)
handful of shredded cheddar and provolone cheese (video uses Parmigiano-Reggiano -which is certainly more traditional. I just didn't have any on hand and it really just acts as a binder/salt agent)
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper and cayenne to taste as well as paprika.
pinch of dried oregano
2 eggs
3 cups of your favorite pasta sauce.
*Let mixture sit overnight in fridge. Bake meatballs for 12-15 at 450 degrees F., then simmer in sauce for 30-60 minutes before serving.
Here is a video that helped me along: Meatball Video
Here are some pics:
First thing you do is chop up a whole bunch of mushrooms
Then you sauté the mushrooms till they brown. Then add in the shallots till they brown slightly. Then you turn off the heat and add garlic and stir it in. Then take contents and put it in a mixing bowl. Add the oatmeal, salt, pepper, oat bran and an egg and mix together. Add oregano, cayenne, paprika and another egg. Mix together and it should look something like this:
Keep this mixture in the fridge overnight. The next day make them in to balls and place them in the oven at 450 for 15 minutes. They should come out looking like this:
Then place them in your pasta sauce and let them sauté for at least a half hour. I let mine sauté for 45 minutes. It looked like this:
Here is a shot of the completed meatballs:
What kid doesn't love spaghetti and meatballs?
Oh, and a nice red with some tannins to cut through that sauce is recommended:
ENJOY!