Garlic Butter Meatballs & Zoodles Are The Perfect Light Summer Pair

Delish

Whether you're looking for a low-carb dinner or just a simple and satisfying weeknight meal, these garlic-butter meatballs with zoodles are sure to satisfy.

Transcript

00:00Hey everybody, it's Brooke in the Delish Kitchen studios making my all-time favorite riff on

00:04spaghetti and meatballs, garlic butter meatballs with zoodles. I know pasta only takes about 10

00:09minutes to cook, but if you don't even have that much time, these zoodles are what you need to

00:13reach for. This is my idea of a truly quick, easy, and cheap dinner, and I'm going to show you guys

00:18how to make it. The thing I love about these meatballs is how few ingredients that you need

00:22to make them incredibly delicious. Obviously, I'm going to have some garlic in the mix, because

00:27what do I ever make that doesn't have garlic in it? I'm just going to give it a quick mince.

00:32I've been called weird for this before, but I always cut my garlic like how I cut onions,

00:36because it just makes sense to me. And then you get like all these nice little uniform garlic

00:41pieces, and you don't have to run your knife through it like 87 times just to get like the

00:44size garlic you want. Look how easy. And of course, I want to add some fresh herbs to these meatballs,

00:50so I'm going to go with some parsley. This is one of those things where if you have dry parsley in

00:55your pantry, and you have everything else to make these meatballs, and you're not about to go to the

00:59store to get some fresh parsley, please just throw that dried parsley in there. Nobody will know the

01:04difference. It's really fine. One crucial part of making meatballs not super duper dry, especially

01:10when you're using poultry like ground chicken or ground turkey, is to add an egg. The egg is also

01:15going to help bind the meatball together so that it doesn't fall apart in the pan. And also to make

01:22sure that the egg incorporates evenly into the meatball mixture, I'm going to give it a little

01:25whisk just to break up the yolk and the white so I don't have any weird pockets of either one

01:29throughout my meatball mixture. For this meatball mixture, the base is ground chicken. It's something

01:35that you can eat on a weeknight and still feel like you can get a good night's sleep. I'm going

01:39to add our beaten egg, a little bit of crushed red pepper, minced garlic, and this chopped up parsley.

01:46I'm also going to hit this with a couple pinches of kosher salt.

01:51Since we've got about a pound of ground meat here, I want to go with at least a teaspoon of salt

01:58and some black pepper.

02:03And last but not least, no self-respecting meatball is complete without a little bit

02:08of parmesan cheese. So I'm going to grate this right into our meatball mixture along with the

02:13garlic and the pepper. This cheese is going to be what gives the meatball most of its flavor.

02:19And this is the one place in this recipe that I don't think you want to take any shortcuts. You

02:23want to go with the good parm. You want to get the fresh parm, the nice parm. Try to avoid something

02:28that's already grated and desiccated. Fresh is better in this this particular instance. Is it

02:34worth a trip to the grocery store? I think it's worth a trip to the grocery store. I'm going to

02:38use this spatula to bring this mixture together. When you're mixing meatballs in general, you want

02:43to be careful not to overmix. I find that when I use my hands, I tend to get on the overmixy side.

02:50But when I use a spatula, one, my hands stay clean, and two, it leads me to do more of a folding motion

02:56than like a squishing, smashing motion. And this way we'll have more tender meatballs and they

03:00won't be overcooked and tough. Got everything I need to form these meatballs, which is just a

03:06parchment-lined sheet tray and what I call a clicky scoop. I've been informed recently that these are

03:11called dishers, but I think clicky scoop sounds better. So I'm going to form these into meatballs

03:17just by getting a little bit in my scooper, scooping it right onto the parchment. This is yet another

03:24way to keep your hands clean and to move quickly, making this the easiest dinner I've ever made

03:30personally. I've got a heavy bottom skillet over medium heat. I'm gonna add about two tablespoons

03:37of oil to it. And then as soon as this is hot enough, I'm gonna start dropping my little chicken

03:42meatballs in. I'm gonna let these go for about three to four minutes, then I'm gonna flip them

03:46and let them go three to four minutes longer. Should be about six to eight minutes total.

03:51These are looking nice and golden brown on the outside. And since these are so small, like I said,

03:57they cook pretty quickly, so make sure you don't walk away from the stove for too long.

04:03Right into the pan with our delicious meatball bits, I'm gonna add some butter.

04:10Obviously, you can't have garlic butter meatballs without at least half a stick of butter.

04:17This butter is gonna be the base of our zoodle sauce.

04:21And we just want to make sure that gets nice and melted.

04:25Then I'm gonna go in with that chopped garlic.

04:29Just let that cook for like a minute or so, just until you can start to really smell it.

04:36And then we're going in with our zoodles. I can't say enough good things about zoodles.

04:41Most grocery stores already have them pre-spiralized. If you have your own spiralizer,

04:45of course, that's a great alternative, but you don't even have to spend your time on that.

04:50They're usually in the produce section in the same area that you find like bagged salads or

04:55pre-cut fruit. This is just such a great grocery store shortcut that I fall for it almost every

05:01time. One thing I would caution you against doing if you do want to make your own zoodles at home

05:06is using like just a plain old box grater. You're not going to get this long, lean shape that you

05:11can get from pre-processed zoodles or from even a spiralizer. It's going to be in shreds, it's

05:16going to be too much water, and it's not going to give you the same sort of noodley texture and

05:20feel that you're looking for. These are going to start to soften just like regular old pasta

05:24noodles would. And you want to keep them moving so that the butter gets incorporated on all of

05:30those noodles. You want them to be fully coated. And since this, again, isn't regular wheat pasta,

05:36this is a vegetable, which means this is not going to take very long to cook. You really

05:40only want these in the super hot pan for about 90 seconds. Last but not least, I'm going to hit

05:44this with some fresh lemon juice. I'm using half a lemon, but if you really like an extra zing from

05:52like some lemon juice, lemony flavor, citrus flavor, use a whole lemon. I'm going to add

05:57these meatballs back to the skillet with the zoodles and just give them a light toss so that

06:02those meatballs can get a little bit of that garlic butter on them and a little bit of that

06:07lemon juice and get everything nice and incorporated. This smells fantastic. All that's left to do is to

06:12taste. This is really like sort of resetting the way I look at spaghetti and meatballs.

06:21The sauce is just made out of butter and lemon juice, but it is packing so much flavor. And since

06:27there's not like a ton of ingredients going on here, that garlic really gets a chance to shine

06:30through and you can taste it in like every single bite of the meatball. This is the kind of recipe

06:35that is going to revolutionize your weeknight dinner. It's simple, it's quick, and it's

06:41absolutely delicious. And it's a total crowd pleaser. If you're looking for more crowd

06:45pleasing and delicious recipes just like this one, keep it right here at delish.com.

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