These baked turkey meatballs are perfectly seasoned, made with ground turkey and chorizo, and then paired with the most amazingly creamy avocado sauce. These meatballs will be ready to eat in 30 minutes!
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✔️ Recipe Overview
Why You'll Love These Meatballs: these are the best turkey meatballs and can be served in many different ways!
How Long It Takes: 10 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to bake.
Equipment You'll Need: Oven safe baking dish and a food processor.
Hands down...these are the best meatballs! You can never go wrong with a good meatball recipe and these baked turkey meatballs are beyond delicious! Not only are they easy to make, but they're quick to prepare and extremely versatile. I bake these in the oven for 20 minutes and then dip them in the most flavorful avocado cream sauce. Not only are they the perfect appetizer, but you can also serve these baked turkey meatballs on a bed of rice or noodles for a delicious lunch or dinner. And, they also taste amazing served with my easy homemade spaghetti sauce or this crock pot marinara sauce!
Most meatball recipes contain either eggs or breadcrumbs to keep them from falling apart, but with this recipe you don't need a binding agent. The fat in the chorizo acts as a binding agent and keeps these baked meatballs moist and held together tightly.
ℹ️ Why This Recipe Works
1. Versatility - You can make these turkey meatballs with chicken, beef, or pork chorizo.
2. These are healthy meatballs that are baked in the oven. There's no need for deep frying or frying them in a skillet. These are also keto meatballs because they're not made with any breadcrumbs.
3. The ingredients are simple and can be found in your local grocery store.
4. Not only do these store well in the refrigerator, but you can also freeze them. Frozen meatballs are easy to reheat and are the perfect choice for dinner when you don't feel like cooking.
🛒 Ingredients You'll Need
The meatball ingredients I use are not only simple and flavorful, but they provide a bit of a kick. I like a good spicy meatball so I add some finely chopped jalapeño to the mixture. To make it even spicer, you can leave in some of the jalapeño seeds. Or if you don't want to make a spicy meatball recipe, you can completely leave out the jalapeño.
To make this recipe even more versatile, you can switch up the type of ground meat you use. Ground turkey is the base, but I love adding in chorizo. To keep these baked turkey meatballs as lean as possible, chicken chorizo is great to use. To add a bit more fat and flavor, use either pork or beef chorizo.
I pair these easy turkey meatballs with a creamy avocado sauce. The avocado sauce is not only great for dipping, but it also tastes amazing when poured over the ground turkey meatballs and a bed of rice or cooked noodles. This sauce also has a bit of spiciness thanks to the cayenne pepper and jalapeño. While it's a mild spicy flavor, those ingredients are optional. Feel free to leave them out.
Using mayonnaise with olive oil adds a lot of creaminess to the avocado sauce but if you can't find that combination at the grocery store, use regular mayonnaise and add in a ½ teaspoon of olive oil.
📋 Step-By-Step Recipe Instructions
These baked meatballs are so easy to make! Start by preheating the oven to 375°F. Using a small amount of olive oil, lightly grease a 9x13 baking dish. Add all the meatball ingredients to a large bowl and using a spoon, mix well to combine. Expert Tip: While using a spoon works well, I like using both hands to combine the mixture. This helps ensure the spices and chopped vegetables are well combined.
Using a small cookie scoop helps ensure you get an equal proportion in each ball. Scoop out the mixture and place them in a row in the baking dish. Expert Tip: If the meatballs need to be rounded, use your hands to form them into a ball. It's also ok if the meatballs are touching while they bake.
Once all the turkey meatballs have been formed, place the dish in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. The internal temperature of the meatballs needs to reach 165°F before removing them from the oven.
While the meatballs are baking, go ahead and make the avocado sauce. Start by adding the avocado, cilantro, lemon and lime juice, jalapeño, cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, and pepper to a food processor.
Pulse the ingredients until lightly combined, about 10 seconds.
Open the lid and add in the mayonnaise with olive oil. Place the lid back on the food processor and process about 10 more seconds.
If using the avocado sauce as a dipping sauce, you'll want the mixture to have some texture and thickness. If using it as more of a creamy avocado sauce to pour over rice or noodles, then combine the ingredients in the food processor until the consistency is smoother and a bit more thin.
Using a spatula, remove the avocado sauce from the food processor and it place in a dish. Top with additional fresh ground pepper and set aside.
When the baked meatballs are done, remove them from the oven. Notice all the juice in the bottom of the baking dish. Don't discard the juices especially if you plan to serve meatballs and rice. The juices can be drizzled on top to add even more flavor!
Regardless of how you serve them, these are the best turkey meatballs and require very little effort to make! This is basic recipe anyone can make, yet tastes like you've been slaving in the kitchen for hours!
Frequently Asked Questions
For this turkey meatball recipe, it's better to bake them because you'll end up getting a lot of extra juice during the baking process. This adds a lot of flavor when serving.
They need to reach an internal temperature of 165°F before removing them from the oven.
Place any leftovers in a container with a lid and store them in the refrigerator for 4-5 days. To freeze, place the completely cooled meatballs in a freezer safe plastic bag and seal. Store for up to 3 months. You can reheat the meatballs directly from the freezer in the oven, microwave, an air fryer, or even in the crockpot!
💭 Expert Tips
- Use food safe disposable plastic gloves when chopping the jalapeño, removing the seeds, and mixing the raw meat. Fresh cut jalapeños can irritate and burn your skin for up to 2 days so be careful.
- If you don't have a food processor, you can use a blender.
- There's no need to turn these meatballs while cooking. Baking them at 375°F will ensure they cook evenly.
- Serve with any sauce you like. They taste amazing with marinara and pesto sauce.
- If you like meatball subs, then these homemade meatballs work really well!
- These also taste amazing in spaghetti, chili, and even in tacos!
- You can make these meatballs any size you want. Regardless of how big or small your meatballs are, use an instant read thermometer to make sure they are completely cooked.
🍽️ More Meatball Recipe Ideas
If you love meatballs as much as I do, then you should try these Asian Teriyaki Meatballs. They are sweet and are also extremely easy to make. And if you love a good spaghetti and meatball dish then try my Italian Marinara with Meatballs. An authentic recipe from Italy, you'll love the fresh oregano and basil in each bite! Perfect over cooked pasta!
Easy Baked Turkey Meatballs
Ingredients
For The Meatballs
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- ½ pound ground turkey
- ½ pound chorizo (pork, chicken, beef)
- ¼ small red onion, minced
- ½ red bell pepper, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- ½ jalapeño, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground blank pepper
For The Avocado Sauce
- 1 avocado
- ¼ cup fresh cilantro
- ½ fresh lime juice from a lime
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- ¼ jalapeño
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ¼ teaspoon cumin
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ⅕ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ cup olive oil mayonnaise
Instructions
To Prepare The Meatballs
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13 baking dish with 2 teaspoons of olive oil.
- Place the ground turkey, ground chorizo, red onion, bell pepper, garlic cloves, jalapeño, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper into a bowl and use your hands to mix the mixture together.
- Using a cookie scoop, scoop out the mixture and form into balls. This should make about 18-24 meatballs.
- Place each meatball, side by side, into the greased baking dish.
- Put in oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165°F.
To Prepare The Avocado Sauce
- While the meatballs cook, create the avocado dipping sauce by placing the avocado, cilantro, lime juice, lemon juice, jalapeño, cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, and pepper into a food processor. Pulse until well combined.
- Once smooth, add the mayonnaise and process once more until well combined.
- Dip the cooked meatballs into the sauce and enjoy!
Video
Notes
- Use disposable plastic gloves when chopping the jalapeño, removing the seeds, and mixing the meat and other ingredients. Fresh cut jalapeños can irritate and burn your skin for up to 2 days so be careful.
- Feel free to use a blender if you don't have a food processor.
- There's no need to turn these meatballs while cooking.
- Serve with any sauce you like. They taste amazing with marinara and pesto sauce.
- If you like meatball subs, then this recipe works really well!
- These also taste amazing in spaghetti and chili.
- You can make these meatballs any size you want. Regardless of how big or small your meatballs are, use an instant read thermometer to make sure they are completely cooked.
- You can also serve these on a bed of rice or cooked pasta.
Enri Lemoine
The combination of spices in these meatballs is heavily delicious. You had me with the addition of chorizo! Extremely delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
Amanda Mason
Enri - I'm so glad you loved them so much! They are definitely full of flavor!