I live with a boy.
This is from the Cowtown half marathon a few weeks ago.
He’s a pretty cute boy, if I do say so myself.
Anyway, this boy likes meat. And even though I’ve admitted that I, too, like meat – he likes meat WAY more than me.
When I wrote the confessions of a meat eater post, I told you guys that I’ve never been a big beef eater. I mostly ate chicken or turkey, with the occasional pork for most of my life. But the boy – he really likes beef and sausage. In general, if it’s meat he will eat it. But if it’s a meatball, a sausage or a chicken wing – he’ll especially want to eat it.
Lucky for me, he’s not a picky eater (unless I’m trying to give him spinach, pumpkin or a fresh made juice) and I’ve been able to reduce his fatty meat consumption over time.
It’s been a gradual and slow process to reduce the amount of beef he (and I for a little while) consumed. When we first met, I did make beef and pork more regularly for him. Even when I first started trying to get healthy, I bought 96% lean beef and pork tenderloins. We ate these meats less frequently, but we still ate them.
Over time, I started phasing out ground beef and substituting it with ground turkey. After that seemed pretty successful, I started to do the same with sausages, trading pork or beef for turkey brats or turkey sausage. I started to make more chicken recipes too.
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We still ate the occasional beef in homemade hamburgers or for a special steak dinner. A combination of moving and both starting school in the Fall Semester (he’s in grad school + working full time right now) made me the sole grocery shopper in the house. We live close to a natural food’s store where I buy 95% of all our meat. They offer a broad range of ground turkey and chicken, as well as chicken or turkey sausage. The fact that I meal planned each week made me able to include more meals subbing turkey or chicken for beef and pork. I always run over the meal plan with him each week, and sometimes he’d request a non-poultry meal. Over time his requests became less and less frequent because I was doing such a good job of making delicious meals with turkey or chicken.
Currently – we eat basically no beef unless we’re out at a restaurant (where he sometimes orders it). Anytime recently that we’ve made homemade burgers we’ve used ground Bison meat (which I LOVE). But for the most part we eat chicken, turkey or fish now. I might make pork once a month, but it’s extremely infrequent. And most weeks I make at least one vegetarian meal where we’re not eating meat at all! That is a FAR cry from where we were 3 years ago when we met.
The key to making a big beef eater to switch from beef to poultry requires making dishes that are very “beef-like”. This means you still need to make the meatballs, grill up some brats or make meatloaf. But you are going to use turkey or chicken rather than beef! Luckily for all of you, I’m sharing a really easy poultry meatball recipe today!
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Here is a FYI tip for people who don’t use ground poultry very often.
Ground Turkey/Ground Chicken: This is ground white & dark meat. This will be darker in color, more juicy and more fattening. 4 oz of ground turkey has roughly 160 calories. That is the same as 4 oz of 96% ground beef, but ground turkey has MUCH less fat and saturated fat than 96% ground beef.
Ground Turkey Breast/Ground Chicken Breast: This is ground white meat ONLY. This is going to be VERY lean, drier and require you to add fat in most of your cooking processes. However, if you are adding a healthy fat like olive oil or canola oil, you will end up with a much heart healthier dish. 4 oz of ground turkey breast has about 120-130 calories and little to no fat.
For a long time I cooked with ground turkey and ground turkey breast. Recently I’ve made the switch to mostly cooking with ground chicken or ground chicken breast. Although, if the turkey is on sale and chicken isn’t, I’ll definitely buy turkey. I really think there is little to no difference in the ground turkey breast and ground chicken breast. I feel like ground turkey is a little more fattening tan ground chicken – but it’s not really noticeable. I’ve made these with meatballs with both chicken and turkey, both ground and ground breast. Either one works – so buy whatever you can that day!
Here is my go-to recipe for super quick and easy poultry meatballs straight from your pantry. I love these because they come together super fast and require no chopping. If you are used to eating beef, I would start with ground turkey or chicken until you get used to the difference, then you can go leaner to the ground breast meat.
Healthier Chicken/Turkey Meatballs Recipe
Makes 16 meatballs
Print this recipe
This recipe is extremely loosely based on Rachel Ray’s Chicken Parm meatballs (as in I took her cooking temp and her measure of breadcrumbs)
Ingredients:
- 1.25 pounds ground poultry of your choice
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (anything but panko)
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 egg
- 1/2 Tbsp italian seasoning (if you are using plain breadcrumbs. If you are using italian seasoned breadcrumbs, omit)
- 2 tsp dried minced onions
- 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 Tbsp dried parsley
- Salt to taste
- 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (only if you are using ground poultry BREAST)
- Olive oil/canola oil spray (store-bought or misto is fine)
- Parchment paper + cookie sheet
Steps:
1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees F. If you are wearing rings on your fingers, remove those as well.
2. Cut parchment paper to fit your cookie sheet.
3. Combine all ingredients through dried parsley in a medium sized mixing bowl. Using your hands is the easiest way to combine everything.
4. If you are using ground poultry breast or your mixture is very dry, add some olive oil. I’d start with less, then combine and add more if you need it.
5. Once your meat is combined, flatten the top so the meat covers the entire bottom of the bowl (this is why using a huge bowl isn’t a good idea). Using your hand, score the meat into four big sections. Like so,
Now, score each fourth of the bowl into two sections – Like so,
Please ignore the fact I am not a paint artist. haha
Don’t say WTF here. Each of these little 1/8 sections is going to make you 2 meatballs. You score the meat this way to ensure all the meatballs are roughly the same size.
Pick up a 1/8 section and loosely roll it into a large ball. Then split into two balls. Roll each one and set it on your parchment paper. Repeat this step until you have 16 meatballs.
6. You can spray the tops of the meatballs with your olive oil or canola oil spray to make them brown.
7. Throw these ‘balls in the oven for about 20 minutes. Use a meat thermometer to ensure the inside temperature is at least 165 degrees F. If it is, they are done! If not, cook for another 5 minutes and check again.
Our favorite way to eat these is over spaghetti squash with the pasta e ceci sauce and steamed broccoli. You’ll never miss the beef or pork. Truth.
If you are a meat eater, do you ever use ground poultry meat in place of beef or pork? If so, what’s your favorite swap?
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