Every single time I juice I watch my husband scrape out the juicer and toss money straight into the garbage. Seriously, that’s how I view it when all that leftover juice pulp goes into the trash can. Don’t get me wrong, juice is awesome and full of nutrients and yay! But all I can think is “Wow. That was $20 of fresh produce and we just tossed 3/4 of it.”
So I finally got smart. Last time I juiced I added the vegetables first (spinach, kale, parsley, celery and carrot, to be exact) and cleaned out the pulp before adding the fruit, saving it to use in the meatballs I’m sharing with you today. (Although I realized too late that I didn’t take any nice pictures of the finished product – my husband and I ate them too fast!)
I wasn’t sure if this would even work or not but the end result was even better than I could have hoped for. The extra veggies give the meatballs a pop of flavor, not to mention the pulp kept them from drying out. Delicious! They may in fact be the best meatballs I’ve made, except maybe for these italian parmesan lovelies.
The best part about these meatballs is that once you have your juice pulp, this is essentially a three ingredient recipe. All I did was combine the veggie pulp, the ground turkey, and a healthy dose of Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute and voila. Easy as…well, meatballs.
I love it when a great plan comes together. Not only do I have a great new meatball recipe to share, I’m also saving money by making the most of the vegetables I’m juicing! Double win over here, y’all!
Turkey Vegetable Meatballs
yields 15-18 meatballs
Ingredients
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 onion, diced
3/4 cup – 1 cup juice vegetable pulp (I used spinach, kale, parsley, carrot and celery)
Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute, approximately 3 tablespoons
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Form into uniformly shaped meatballs and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until meatballs are cooked through. These tasted phenomenal by themselves or drizzled with some ketchup, but they are also delicious served with marinara sauce over some spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles!
Side Note: I made these a second time and used beef instead of turkey – they tasted just as good!
Bear Family Strong 
These look awesome! I have been wanting to get a juicer but I agree that it seems like a waste throwing away all that pulp, veggies are expensive! Once I get juicing, I’ll give these a try 🙂
You should! Let me know how it goes!
Looks delicious!! You should make these for lunch one day when we come over- I’d love to try your zucchini noodles too! And since you’d be making the entree, I could bring the quinoa chocolate cake for dessert 😉
Yes please!
Yum! I love this! Great recipe. We will be trying this! We have done something similar and made soup instead 🙂
Soup is an awesome idea as well – I’ll have to try that!
You any go wrong with soup 🙂 I’ve also used it in bread, but it isn’t as moist as usual so add extra applesauce etc to the mixture!
Correction: you CAN’T go wrong with soup!
Yum! I make green smoothies these days, which means I’m essentially drinking the (pulverised) pulp but this recipe makes me want to get my juicer out, just to make pulp! 🙂
I recommend it!