Turkey meatballs with bacon
- Preparation 10 min
- Cooking 20 min
- Servings 40
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍗 Ground turkey dries out, bacon fixes it
Turkey is good. Bacon is delicious. Put the two together and now we’re talking.
Here is the thing about ground turkey: it dries out. It is lean, there is almost no fat in it, and a plain turkey meatball ends up bland and tight. Finely chopped bacon in the mix fixes that. The fat melts as the meatballs cook, it stays trapped in the meat, and they come out tender. The smoke is a bonus.
🎉 Made for a holiday cocktail hour
I made these the first time for a holiday cocktail hour. The platter was empty before I sat down. Made them again at a party, same story.
🍢 Forty bites, toothpicks, a sauce on the side
The recipe gives you about forty bites. Toothpicks, my tzatziki mint sauce in a bowl beside them, and your evening is handled. On a weeknight the same meatballs become dinner, with pasta and homemade spaghetti sauce.
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🥓 Half-frozen bacon cuts thin
Pull the bacon out of the freezer twenty minutes ahead, or slide a fresh pack in while you chop the garlic and the parsley. The slice holds its shape, the knife goes straight through, and you get small even pieces instead of pink paste. That is the whole trick. Tiny bacon bits spread through every single meatball. Big chunks give you two smoky bites and thirty-eight plain turkey ones.
👀 No thermometer
You do not poke a meatball. You look at it: browned all over in the pan, ten minutes in the oven, done.
🧪 Taste before you roll forty of them
Do not skip the little test patty. It is the only way to know the mix is seasoned before you are stuck with a bowl of raw meat that tastes like nothing. Onion salt and italian seasoning vary a lot from one jar to the next, and the bacon is already bringing salt of its own. One minute of testing, and you fix it.
📅 Make ahead
Mix it the night before and let it sit covered in the fridge. You can even roll the meatballs and keep them on a tray until the next day, so the searing and the baking happen while guests are walking in. Cooked ones hold up fine too if you would rather have everything done.
❄️ Freeze them raw
Roll them, spread them on a tray without letting them touch, freeze, then move them to a bag. Raw, not cooked. Turkey does not take two cookings well and you would lose the tenderness the bacon went in there for.
🔥 Reheating
Microwave or air fryer. The microwave is faster, the air fryer brings the crust back.
✅ What to serve with my turkey meatballs with bacon?
For an appetizer: toothpicks, a bowl of sauce, that is it. My tzatziki mint sauce is the one I reach for most, the mint cuts straight through the bacon smoke. My best ketchup and mayonnaise dip, with freshly grated parmesan stirred in, does the job too, and honestly any dip you already like will work. On a platter I set them next to my cheesy pork meatballs with blond beer so people get a choice. For a weeknight dinner, pasta and homemade spaghetti sauce.
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Ingredients
- 2 pounds lean ground turkey
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 6 bacon slices slightly frozen, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) flat parsley (compact), very finely chopped
- 2 shallots, finely chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) italian spices
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) onion salt
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) panko
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) white wine
- 1 egg
- Salt and ground pepper
- Olive oil
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Preparation
- Preheat the oven at 425 °F (220 °C).
- Except for the olive oil, put all the ingredients in a big bowl and combine with your hands. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- In a big pan at medium-high temp, heat a drizzle of olive oil. Take a small amount of mix and form a mini pattie with it. Cook for about 5 minutes, taste and rectify seasonning if necessary.
- Take a big tablespoon of the mix and form a small ball with it then set aside. Repeat until all mix is gone! Sear the meatballs on all side, about 5 minutes total. Add olive oil if needed.
- Place the meatballs in a big cooking tray then cook in the oven for about 10 minutes. Stir at half time. Serve with my tzatziki mint sauce!
Panko and one egg. That is the whole binder here. Panko is lighter than regular breadcrumbs and it soaks up less liquid, so the meatballs stay airy instead of turning dense, and the egg holds everything together once the heat hits. No milk, no flour, nothing else to buy.
Something cold and sharp, to play against the bacon. My tzatziki mint sauce is my first pick, the mint and the yogurt cut the smoke clean. A ketchup and mayonnaise dip with parmesan stirred in is the other one I make, and any dip already sitting in your fridge will work. Serving them as dinner instead of an appetizer? Drop the dip and go with tomato sauce over pasta.
Add fat, because ground turkey carries almost none. Finely chopped bacon is the easiest way in, and it melts through the meat as it cooks. Then go easy with your hands: mix with your fingers, roll loosely, and never pack the balls tight. A compressed meatball turns rubbery no matter how much fat you put in it.
Yes, definitely. Ground chicken behaves almost the same way, just as lean, just as hungry for fat, and the bacon does the same work. Nothing else in the recipe changes. The flavor is a touch milder than turkey, which leaves even more room for the smoke.
Absolutely, and raw is the way to do it. Roll them, freeze them flat on a tray so they do not stick, then bag them. Cook them straight from the recipe afterward with a few extra minutes in the oven. Freeze them cooked and they go through two cookings, which is how turkey ends up dry.
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