Cheesy inside and crispy on the outside, you have the best idea anyone has come up with. Stuffed meatballs! Easy to make and family-pleasing to make any night! The best part of this dish is letting it simmer in tomato sauce for extra flavor. If you don’t have ground turkey, you can use regular ground beef. You can serve these meatballs as an appetizer, with spaghetti, or as a pizza topping, and they also make an amazing meatball sub sandwich. No matter how you serve them, these meatballs are sure to be a hit!
Pasta is usually my go-to meal when I’m looking for something easy for my fiancé and me. It’s always been my go-to, even when I lived at home. It’s budget-friendly, easy to make and you can make different dishes with pasta. However, pasta and meatballs are a classic. Stuffing them with cheese is just an easy elevation of this dish! The best thing for these delicious meatballs is to make your own tomato sauce and let the meatballs simmer in the sauce. The juices from them seep into the sauce, giving it extra flavor.
There is a challenge when making these stuffed meatballs: The cheese oozing out of the meatball. While that sometimes happens to others, you want to make sure your meatball is totally sealed up. It really shouldn’t happen though if you seal it correctly. Add a little extra meat when sealing the cheese inside if you want to play it safe. If the cheese does ooze out, it might be one of two of them. I only hope it doesn’t happen when making this recipe though!
What can be done with stuffed meatballs?
- You can use any meat and any cheese. Play with your food a little bit! Use ground sausage as the meatball and stuff with Havarti. Maybe even make ground pork meatballs and stuff with fontina. Got ground beef? Stuff that with sharp cheddar! Ground chicken meatballs stuffed with blue cheese. The possibilities are endless with meat and cheese!
- Extra meatballs? Freeze them! If you make a little too many, freeze them! Allow them to cool completely, then scrape off any residual grease that might be hanging around on the bottom of the meatballs. Place the meatballs on a cookie sheet and freeze, then pick them off the sheet and place them into a freezer bag. This method will keep them from sticking together. To reheat, thaw in the fridge overnight and heat in the oven or microwave, or directly in a bubbling pot of tomato sauce.
- It doesn’t need to just be tomato sauce to pair with. You can make any type of stuffed meatball and a different sauce. You can do ground beef meatballs stuffed with cheddar and slather them in a barbecue sauce. Pork meatballs stuffed with cream cheese can be dipped in a jalapeno cream dip. What about the ground chicken and blue cheese you have in the fridge, along with that bottle of buffalo sauce not being used? Pair those together! The possibilities, again, are ENDLESS!!
- How extra is this recipe? Not at all! It’s very easy to make. Just like if you were to make meatballs for a Sunday dinner, you can stuff it with cheese for the elevation the meatballs never knew they needed! There’s really no extra prep needed, other than dicing some cheese. If you don’t want to spend the time cutting cheese, you can buy shredded cheese. Though, some cheeses are not available in shredded form such as goat cheese, gorgonzola or blue cheese.
Want the recipe? Click print below! Let me know how it came out for you by tagging me on Instagram (@missravenskitchen) and using #missravenskitchen! Let me know if I need to tweak anything.
Stuffed Turkey Mozzarella Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cups breadcrumbs, plus more if needed
- 6 oz fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into small cubes (18-20 pieces)
- 4 cups tomato pasta sauce of choice (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F if you choose to bake the meatballs.
- Heat olive oil in a saute pan on medium-high heat, then add the onions. Cook for 6 minutes until translucent and soft. Add garlic and cook for another minute. Set aside. Allow to slightly cool.
- In a mixing bowl, combine ground turkey, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, parsley, egg, and breadcrumbs. (*1) Add the onions and garlic, then mix to combine into the meat. Mix just until combined (over mixing will create tough meatballs).
- Take approximately 3 tablespoons of the meat mixture and roll it into a ball. Press a cube of cheese into the ball of meat, making sure that the meat completely surrounds the cheese. Set aside the meatball on a plate and repeat with the remaining meat and cheese.
- In that same saute pan you used for the onions and garlic, heat 2 tbsp olive oil on medium-high heat. Place a few meatballs at a time and brown on both sides, about 5 minutes each. Place meatballs on a sheet pan with aluminum foil and sprayed with cooking spray. Repeat with the remaining meatballs.
- If you are baking the meatballs, bake the meatballs in a 350F oven for 20 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 165F.
- If you are using the tomato sauce, heat the sauce in a saucepot and place the meatballs in the sauce for an additional 20 minutes so it will flavor up the sauce.
Notes:
(*1) If the mixture is too wet, you can add a few tablespoons of breadcrumbs extra until it is not as wet. Meatballs that are too wet will break apart.
**Cook time includes 20 minutes of simmering in the sauce.
Nutrition Facts
Calories
133.04Fat (grams)
8.54Sat. Fat (grams)
2.75Carbs (grams)
4.55Fiber (grams)
0.43Net carbs
4.12Sugar (grams)
0.66Protein (grams)
9.54Sodium (milligrams)
247.38Cholesterol (grams)
44.51This does not include the tomato pasta sauce. The sauce is optional
Miss Raven's Kitchen 
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