Lentil meatballs
1/2 small onion, chopped
1 small celery stalk, finely diced
1/4 C shredded carrot
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 1/4 C rinsed lentils
2 1/4 C stock
Salt & pepper
1/2 C nutritional yeast
1/3 C flax meal
1 C breadcrumb
1 beaten egg
In a sauce pan, sauté the vegetables until tender. Add Italian seasoning, garlic and a pinch of salt and cook just until you smell the garlic. Stir in the lentils and stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer, cover with lid and cook for 25-30 minutes until the lentils are tender.
In a separate bowl mix the flax meal and bread crumbs with the nutritional yeast. (I grind my flax seeds with the milling blade on the Baby Bullet.)
When your lentil mixture is tender stir them into the nutritional yeast and flax in the bowl. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
At this point if you are vegan or have egg sensitivities, you could leave it out and start forming your balls.
If you are adding egg…beat it in a separate bowl ow measuring cup and stir in a little of the lentil mixture to temper it. The lentil mixture is still warm at this point, so you don’t want to stir your egg in without tempering, you could scramble it. Stir in your egg and season with salt & pepper.
Grease a baking sheet. The mixture is very sticky! If you grease your hands with a little olive oil now and then it will help. Form your lentil mixture into about 1.5 inch balls and arrange on your baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes. This recipe made 40 “meat” balls. We stirred a bakers dozen into homemade sauce for pasta and froze the rest for another day.
I hope you enjoy them! Squishy loved them!
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