Italian Turkey Meatballs

Seasoned with parmesan cheese, marinara sauce and herbs, these Italian Turkey Meatballs are oven-baked and quick to put on the dinner table.

In my home, meatballs are beloved, and these Italian Turkey Meatballs are one of my kid's favorite. Ground turkey is mixed together with marinara sauce, parmesan cheese, Italian season breadcrumbs and herbs before getting baked off under the broiler for a quick weeknight dinner.

They can be served in the most obvious way (with pasta) or with a few side dishes (like polenta and garlic bread) to make a meal.

What Makes this Recipe Stand Out

• Marinara sauce is added to the meat mixture to give it flavor and keep the baked turkey meatballs moist. Turkey can so often be dry, but these meatballs are anything but.
• Meatballs are great when they're pan-seared, but that's time consuming. This recipe calls for baking under a broiler to get the best of both worlds, a hands-off bake while getting a bit crispy and brown from the direct heat from the broiler.
• This isn't a classic Italian meatball, but instead an Italian flavored meatball, using Italian seasoned breadcrumbs and italian seasoning to get that unique flavor.

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Ingredients Needed and Substitutions

Here is a brief overview of the ingredients needed for this recipe. The full recipe with quantities is listed below this text in the recipe card. If substitutions are available for this recipe, they'll be listed here. If you don't see a substitution you are looking for, please leave a comment below.

• ground turkey (if possible use dark meat, or a mixture of light and dark meat)
• italian bread crumbs (if you don't have these on hand you can use regular breadcrumbs or panko, but you'll lose out on a bit of the seasoning)
• smooth marinara sauce (homemade or store-bought is fine but try to use a smooth one without too many large chunks of tomato since it'll show up in the meatball)
• grated parmesan cheese (or pecorino works too)
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• Italian seasoning

Useful Tools

Here are the tools used in this recipe. You won't necessarily choose to use them all, but sometimes tools make for quicker work in the kitchen! Some of these links may contain affiliate links.

• mixing bowl
• rimmed sheet pan
• 2 ounce scooper (this makes forming the meatballs super quick)
• your hands (ok, this is kind of a joke but seriously using your hands to mix the meatball mixture is truly the most efficient way of doing it)
• instant-read thermometer (always useful when checking the temperature of meat)

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Why Broil Turkey Meatballs

Have you ever broiled meatballs before? Broiling is a little bit like indoor grilling, in the sense that you are cooking with a somewhat direct heat, though from the top. I choose to broil these turkey meatballs for a few reasons:

• it's pretty quick
• it's largely a hands-off cooking method (aside from optionally flipping them once, though this is truly optional)
• it gets the meatballs browned a bit, though not as good as if they were pan-seared on the stove.

Don't want to broil? That's totally fine. You can also bake these turkey meatballs, or pan-sear them.

To bake them, cook in a preheated 425ºF oven for about 20 minutes, or until they reach a temperature of above 165ºF.

The Size of the Meatball

As the recipe is written, these meatballs are a little on the larger side of about ¼ cup or 2 ounces of meat. You can make them any size you want, but the time needed to cook them will increase or decrease depending on if you make them bigger or smaller.

Also, using a scoop is the easiest way to portion out meatballs. Sometimes when I'm feeling really in a rush I don't even roll them in a ball, but instead scoop out the mixture and put it directly on the baking sheet. Nobody cares if the meatballs aren't perfectly round.

Storing and Freezing Turkey Meatballs

Store leftover meatballs in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. They reheat really well and make great leftovers.

Meatballs are freezer champs. They freeze well for about 3-6 months. To freeze them, initially lay them on a clean sheetpan with parchment. Once they are completely frozen, transfer them to bags or another long term storage container. This prevents them from sticking together when freezing.

Quickest way to reheat them? Throw them in some marinara sauce to warm through and serve with pasta.

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Making the recipe? Be sure to leave a comment with a star review on your experience! Have a question? Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can!

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