Recipe: The Best Meatballs & Avocado Salad
20 minutes prep time, 50 minutes cooking time
When meatballs and pasta feels a bit heavy on a summers evening, try swapping the pasta for an avocado salad. Trust us, its delicious, hearty yet light, and you won’t miss the pasta. We’re sharing the BEST meatball recipe, paired with a delicious tomato sauce. It’s simple yet incredibly tasty.
This recipe does require a little extra labour but the results are well worth it.
Instead of using tinned tomatoes, this recipe calls for fresh ones. Tinned tomatoes often contain high levels of citric acid, making the sauce too acidic, which then requires sugar to balance the PH. Using fresh tomatoes eliminates the need for sugar and creates a far superior taste.
Ingredients - Serves 4
For the meatballs:
250g Pork mince
500g Beef mince
3 Crushed Garlic Cloves
2 Egg Yolks
60g Panko Breadcrumbs
2 Sprigs Rosemary
2 Teaspoons Flakey Salt
Pepper to Season
For the tomato sauce:
1 onion
12 Vine Large Tomatoes
250g Vine Cherry Tomatoes
3 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon Table Salt
Pepper to Season
Method
Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (fan).
For the tomato sauce
Slice the tops off the tomatoes to make grating easier. Grate all 12 tomatoes, discarding the skin.
Dice your onion and fry for 10 minutes. Add the crushed garlic and fry for a further 5 minutes. We recommend using a cast iron casserole dish for the sauce, as it will need to go into the oven later.
Quarter your cherry tomatoes and add to the onion mixture. Cook until soft.
Add your grated tomatoes and let it simmer while you prepare the meatballs.
For the meatballs
Combine all the meatball ingredients into a bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands.
Form the mixture into meatballs. We like to use a large ice cream scoop to ensure they are all the same size. This recipe makes 9 large meatballs.
Place the meatballs on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
Transfer the tomato mixture to a food processor and blend until smooth. We use a Nutri Bullet, but any food processor will work.
Taste and season the sauce. It may appear thin, but it will thicken in the oven. Pour the sauce back into your ovenproof dish.
After 20 minutes transfer the meatballs into the sauce and return the dish to the oven, uncovered, for another 20 minutes.
Garnish with fresh basil and parmesan to serve.
For the avocado salad, slice your avocado and prepare the sweet gem lettuce. Toss all together, season with salt and pepper and top with extra virgin olive oil.
