Easy Mediterranean Lentil Meatballs
https://www.loveandlemons.com/caprese-salad/
I’ve posted a few Caprese salad recipes over the years. If you look through the recipe index, you’ll find one with strawberries, one with plums, one with a drizzle of mint pesto, and even cute little Caprese skewers with peaches! What you won’t find, though, is this: a classic Caprese salad with soft, creamy fresh mozzarella, juicy seasonal tomatoes, and a generous amount of basil leaves. It’s a salad that’s been near and dear to my heart ever since we visited the island of Capri, years ago, just after Jack proposed. It was a magical trip where we ate Caprese salads every day while questioning how a dish with such simple ingredients could possibly taste so amazing. This is a recipe that you hardly need a recipe for, but keep reading for my tips to make the best(!) Caprese salad, along with a few more fun variations.
A great Caprese salad starts with great ingredients. This recipe is meant for summertime, when tomatoes are at their juiciest, sweetest, and most flavorful. I like stop by the farmers market and collect as many colorful heirloom tomatoes as I can. Not only are they beautiful, but each type tastes a little bit different, and it’s fun to showcase them in this simple salad. Look for greens, yellows, and reds, and try to find a variety of shapes – cherry tomatoes are fair game here too!
In addition to peak-season tomatoes, you need these 5 simple ingredients:
Slice your tomatoes and mozzarella and layer them onto a platter with the fresh basil leaves. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve!
In the recipe below, you’ll see that I suggest a few variations. While it’s hard to beat a traditional Caprese salad made with good heirloom tomatoes, sometimes it’s fun to change things up. Here are a few of my favorite ways to do it:
How do you like your Caprese salad? Let me know in the comments!
Try one of these summer salads next:
Caprese Salad
Author: Jeanine Donofrio
Recipe type: Salad
Don’t you just love it when a recipe is as simple as ‘mix + bake’? No pre-cooking, no unnecessary extra steps – just mix together all of the ingredients, and pop it in the oven. And that’s just the case for these vegetarian lentil meatballs (lentil balls? vegeballs? meatlessballs?). They couldn’t be easier.
Other easy ‘mix and bake’ recipes → easy nut roast; baked fajita rice; Boursin pasta.
I served my lentil balls with spaghetti and tomato sauce – spaghetti and meatballs is such a classic that’s hard to improve on. If you prefer, you could equally serve these vegetarian meatballs with couscous and tzatziki, stuffed into pitta bread, or even just eaten straight from the oven (no judgment here). They’re packed with Mediterranean-inspired flavours, and they’re super versatile.
The basic recipe for these lentil meatballs is canned lentils + flour + egg (the same base I used for my cheesy lentil burgers). Once you’ve got that far, you can jazz things up however you like. I added:
If you like, you could easily switch things up to bring a different flavour profile to your meatballs – maybe you could make a Tex-Mex version, or use some Indian spices, for example.
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Here’s what you’ll need to make these vegetarian meatballs. See the printable recipe card below for detailed ingredient quantities.
You could certainly mix together the ingredients in advance, and then store the mixture in a sealed container in the fridge for a day or so, until you’re ready to shape and bake the balls. The meatballs are tastiest when freshly baked, but if needed, you could even bake them in advance, and then reheat when you’re ready to eat them.
I didn’t experiment with freezing these balls, but it’s the sort of recipe I have had luck with freezing in the past, so I definitely think it’s worth a try.
The easiest way to reheat these lentil meatballs is in the microwave. They do dry out a little and lose their crispiness when reheated, but they’re still tasty. Alternatively, you could re-crisp them in the oven or air fryer.
I served my meatballs with spaghetti and tomato sauce, which worked beautifully. You could alternatively serve them stuffed into pitta bread with some tzatziki, or alongside some mashed potato.
The post Easy Mediterranean Lentil Meatballs appeared first on Easy Cheesy Vegetarian.
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