meat-free 'meat balls'

Last night for dinner, I decided to raid the pantry as we were having one of those "argh I have no food left in the fridge" moments. After a bit of digging around and deciding what to do, I decided to wing it. This was what I created - 

 

I was so impressed by it, I thought I would share the recipe. No one around here even realised that this dinner right here doesn't even have any meat in it!

This is the kid version...

Meat-free ‘meatballs’. (serves about 6)

Ingredients:

‘Meat’balls:

2 cups of well-cooked lentils (you need to be able to mash them)

1 egg

3Tblsp Oat Flour (read how to make oat flour here)

2 Red Onions

1 Clove of Garlic, crushed

Salt & Pepper

Spices of choice (I used oregano)

1Tblsp Olive Oil (or whatever oil you use)

Sauce:

1 Jar of pasta sauce (I used passata)

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 onion, diced.

Salt and Pepper

Oregano

Method:

Put your lentils in a bowl and mash them. I just used the saucepan I cooked them in. Make sure you mash them up until they are nice and smooth.

Add your egg, oat flour, garlic, onion, salt, pepper and spices of choice** and give it a good mix. I used the potato masher to do my mixing so that if I missed any lentils they were mashed in the process.

Heat a frypan on medium-high. Roll your lentil mix into balls and cook them off in batches until they are brown on the outside. Take them out of the pan and put them on a plate.

 

Now it is time to make your sauce –Reduce the frypan heat to medium low.

Fry off the onions, garlic and oregano. Add the pasta sauce to the pan and bring to a simmer, stirring regularly.

Add your ‘meat’balls back to the pan and cook until they are nice and hot.

I served the balls and sauce with baby spinach and pasta. The pasta really ups the carbohydrate content, so next time I might use spaghetti squash or maybe slimpasta as an alternative.

** I say use whatever spices you like because lentils are pretty neutral tasting, so you can add whatever flavour you like. If you want to serve this with noodles, you could add chilli and coriander and make it nice and spicy.

Hope you enjoy making and eating meat-free meatballs as much as I did.