I am always on the lookout for quick weeknight meals that are really healthy and make a lot of leftovers. It’s an added bonus if it’s a comforting food that makes me feel warm and cozy when I eat it. This recipe checks off all those boxes. It’s nothing fancy, but you can easily add it to your weeknight rotation in place of a more traditional spaghetti and meatballs. You can even sneak some chicken liver in without your family noticing. I wrote about the benefits of liver here. This recipe calls for specific veggies for those who like structure, but I’d encourage you to either use anything you have in your fridge at the moment OR to buy a new veggie you are not very familiar with at the store to try here.
I really like to mix meats in meatballs - it just makes the flavor so much more interesting. And this recipe packs in some liver, which if you're not yet on the liver bandwagon I highly suggest you check out this post.
Also, if you are confused about me listing olive oil as an acceptable cooking oil - stay tuned for my next post!
A couple comments on the serving size: I doubled the amount of meat so that you can make enough to freeze four servings of meatballs. It ALWAYS makes my life easier to have cooked meat that just needs reheating, but I like to make my veggies fresh. Feel free to cut the meat in half if you just want 4 servings. I also find that people have very different preferences on how much tomato sauce they want – so I set a range. Personally, I prefer a little less tomato sauce, so I made this with just 1 box. Also, make sure to look for hidden sugar in tomato sauce! There is absolutely no reason tomato sauce needs sugar, but many brands hide it. Currently, I really like the Pomi boxed brand.
Simple Roasted Veggies and Meatballs
Serves: 4 (with double the meatballs for leftovers!)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Ingredients
Meatballs
1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef
½ lb chicken liver
1 T chopped fresh oregano
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 t salt
½ t black pepper
Veggies
4 carrots
1 onion
1 head broccoli
2 T bacon grease, butter, coconut oil, or olive oil
Sauce
1-3 x 26 oz jars or boxes of tomato sauce (Depends on how saucy you like it!)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400˚ F
- Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Chop the chicken liver as finely as possible. (You can also use a food processor for this, but I think that the hassle of cleaning the food processor takes longer than chopping.)
- In a mixing bowl, use your hands to combine the ground meat, chopped liver, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper.
- Form 2” meatballs from the mixture and place them on one parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.
- Chop the carrots, onion, and broccoli into bite sized pieces and split them onto the other two cookie sheets.
- Melt your oil or butter on the stove and drizzle over the veggies. Salt and pepper as desired.
- Cook the meatballs and veggies in the oven for about 30 minutes, stirring the veggies after 15 minutes. Cut one of the larger meatballs in half with a steak knife to check it, there should only be a small amount of light pink in the middle and no red juices flowing. The veggies should pierce easily with a fork when done.
- Warm the tomato sauce in a small sauce pan on the stove.
- Serve half the meatballs and tomato sauce over all the veggies. Store the other half of the meatballs in the fridge or freezer as leftovers.