Turkey Meatlumps

A weekly staple at my house is a traditional spaghetti and meat marinara sauce with the ratio of 1 pound of ground meat to 2 jars of sauce.   However, we discovered we tend to have leftover sauce, so we began brainstorming for alternatives.  Since we customize sauce from a jar rather than create our own (I prefer a fresher sauce of simply cooking up some cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil, with a little olive oil in a pan, but that's another discussion), my dad suggested we make and freeze meatballs and pull them out after we warmed up one jar of sauce at a time.  I made up a batch of these one evening with the intent of freezing most of them the next day.  They were gone by the next evening.  I made another batch the next day following this recipe, and they turned out just as moist, silky, flavorful, light, and meaty.   I call them "meatlumps" instead of "meatballs" because they aren't spherical.  I'm a perfectionist of sorts...

A slightly dark photo of the first batch.

Turkey Meatlumps

1 1/2 lb ground turkey

1 extra large egg

3/4c seasoned bread crumbs (or add enough italian seasoning for
them to look like seasoned bread crumbs to make your own)

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1 tsp fresh basil, chiffoned 

2 Tbsp or so green onion

1 Tbsp peccorino romano, parmesan, or some other hard and salty cheese

1-2Tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400F.  

Mix all ingredients until just combined.  Do not over-mix or they will get really dense. Oil a cookie sheet, and then scoop the meat by tablespoon and form balls.  Place close on the pan next to each other.  Bake for 15 minutes or until no longer pink inside.  Avoid overcooking.  Remove from pan a few minutes after they are out of the oven.  Clean up tip: the sooner you clean the pan, the easier it will be.