Gluten Free Meatballs

Every meatball recipe I ever come across calls for breadcrumbs as an ingredient.  And apart from Fairway, a grocery store in New York City, I have never seen gluten free breadcrumbs for sale.  Nor do I want to spend time drying out my precious gluten free bread loaves to later pulverize into breadcrumbs.  “There has to be a way to make meatballs without breadcrumbs”, I told myself.  And so here it is:

Gluten Free Meatballs

Ingredients:

1/2 cup onion, diced

1 Tbsp olive oil

1.25 pounds ground turkey

1/4 cup walnuts, finely choppped

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Directions:

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat.  Cook the onion, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, 5 to 6 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.  Heat broiler.  In a large bowl, combine the turkey, walnuts, onions, raisins, cinnamon, salt and pepper.  Form the mixture into golfball-size meatballs (about 16-20) and place on a foil-lined baking sheet.  Broil 6 minutes, then turn meatballs over, and broil 6 to 8 minutes more, until cooked through.  Makes 4 servings.

*Note: the raisins and cinnamon in this recipe leave a wonderful sweet taste in your mouth, much like a Moroccan stew.  Another option is to leave out the raisins/cinnamon and increase the walnuts to 1/2 cup.

*If you have a favorite family recipe for meatballs, try substituting ground Rice Chex in place of breadcrumbs.