My grandma is the master of any type of meatballs you can think of, but this recipe is mine. I started making this vegetarian meatballs many years ago. I remember I was preparing a buffet for my birthday party, back in Italy, and I came up making this recipe for veggie meatballs. My guest enjoyed it so much, I started making them much more often, playing with ingredients, especially cheese, until reaching the perfect balance.

It’s an easy vegetarian recipe, but the process is a little bit long. You need to chop all the vegetable into very small pieces, and cook them in a specific order, depending on the vegetable itself. I made it sound worse than it really is. Actually, once you are are done cutting all the vegetable, you are 50% towards the end. You will see that it’s worth it!

Vegetarian Meatballs Ingredients

Vegetables: I use a mix of zucchini, peppers, eggplants and leek
Ricotta and Parmesan: to give it an extra fluffiness texture
Bread Crumbs and egg: will help to keep all the ingredient together while you are shaping your vegetarian meatballs
Fresh basil: gives an extra summer touch to the dish

Vegetarian Meatballs

Cuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

minutes

Ingredients

2 Zucchini (medium ones)
1 Pepper (big one)
1 Eggplant (medium one)
1 Leek (medium one)
200g Ricotta
40g Parmesan
1 Egg
8-10 Fresh basil leaves
Etra-virgin olive oil, salt, black pepper

Directions

Cut the veggies. Cut eggplants, zucchini and peppers into small cubes. Slice the leek in half lengthwise and cut it into half moons.
Cook the vegetables. In a large pan heat the extra-virgin olive and add the leek. cook it for 2 minutes. Then, add the eggplant and cook it for 5 minutes. Add the peppers and cook it for other 5 minutes, keep stirring the vegetables. After you have cooked the vegetables for about 12 minutes (from the starting) add the zucchini. Cook the vegetables until they get soft (10/15 more minutes).
Let the cooked veggies rest for 15 minutes. Then add ricotta, Parmesan, egg and bread crumb. Mix it well.
Bake. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place a piece of parchment paper over a baking dish. Now, take two spoons and shape the mixture into small balls. The mixture is pretty sticky, so using spoons is faster. If this sounds complicated, just use your hands, and if the mixture sticks too much to your hands, add some more bread crumbs. Bake for about 20/30 minutes or until the vegetarian meatballs get golden.

Notes

Serve the vegetarian meatballs after they chilled down a bit. They are delicious the day after as well.

What are vegetarian meatballs made of?

There isn’t a rule. You can use the vegetables you prefer, in this case I’ve used the veggies I like the most. But, if you dislike one or more ingredient you can always adjust the recipe to your taste.

What to serve with vegetarian meatballs

If you choose to serve these vegetarian meatballs as part of a buffet or as an aperitif, I recommend you pair them with other vegetarian dishes, like a Caprese salad, tomato brushetta or a simple focaccia Genovese.