Chicken Ricotta Meatballs

These meatballs are perfect with pasta, as a single protein with veggies, cut up on salads, or even used an appetizer and dipped in a tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of ground chicken

• 1/4 cup of ricotta

• 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese

• 2 tbsp of chopped parsley

• 1/2 tsp of lemon zest

• 1/2 tsp of salt

• 1/2 tsp of freshly ground pepper

• 1/2 tsp of onion powder

• 1 tsp of dried oregano

In a mixing bowl, mix all the meatball ingredients together. The meat mixture should be light and fluffy and there should be no white ricotta chunks. Roll the meat mixture into small, golf ball sized balls and place on a plate or baking sheet (lined with parchment paper). Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until ready to use.

Preheat your oven to 350F and set up another baking sheet with parchment paper.

After the meatballs have firmed up in the refrigerator, heat about 1 tbsp of grapeseed oil in a pan. Working in batches, brown your meatballs on the pan- the goal is to get a bit of color, not cook the meatballs all the way through. As the meatballs get some color, remove them from the heat and place them on the prepped cooking sheet.

Bake from 20-30 minutes or until fully cooked. The inside of the meatball should be juicy and tender, but have no traces of pink whatsoever.

Like mentioned above, you can really use these chicken ricotta meatballs for anything you want! For this occasion, I used them to add into orecchiette al limon (a lemony garlicky pasta sauce.)

Ingredients:

• 1 box of orecchiette pasta

• 4 tbsp of unsalted butter

• 2 tbsp of olive oil

• 5 cloves of garlic; finely minced

• 2 tbsp of chopped parsley

• Juice of 1 lemon

• Zest of 1 lemon

• 2 tbsp of finely grated parmesan cheese

• Reserved pasta water (as needed)

Optional: red pepper flakes for serving.

Cook your pasta according to the box, reserving about 1/2 cup of pasta water.

Meanwhile in a large pan (that will eventually fit your sauce, pasta and meatballs), melt down your butter. Add in the garlic and sauté. You want the garlic to be fragrant but not browning or burnt.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer your pasta into the garlic butter and toss well with olive oil. Add in your lemon juice and zest, salt and pepper to taste and mix well. Add in your parmesan cheese and parsley, toss well. Add in pasta water as needed to create more of a sauce if your pasta is drying out. Mix well and add in your meatballs.

Serve warm and top with more parm and red pepper (chili) flakes as desired.