Serve these crowd pleasing vegan meatballs at your next event! These are sure to impress all your guests, even your most carnivorous friends and family. I bet some of them won’t even notice they are vegan meatballs if you don’t tell them! Drop me a line below and let me know if you enjoyed them!
Precook your lentils and saute your veggies ahead of time if you wish. These can stay refrigerated for up to a couple days prior to use. Since I’m a fan of meal prep, I often have precooked lentils in my fridge ready to go, saving me this step. But if you don’t, and you’re in a hurry, feel free to sub for canned lentils at an equal ratio instead.
When you’re ready to go, add all your ingredients to a food processor to combine your “meat” ball mixture. Do not over process, you don’t want a completely pureed batter, or your meatballs will not hold as well, so some chunkiness is completely fine.
Once combined, you will form your vegan meatballs.
PRO TIP: Use slightly wet hands! This makes it much easier to handle the mixture and form nice smooth meatballs. It also helps avoid the mixture from getting stuck to your hands and in between your fingers. Trust me, do this! And re-wet your hands after forming every few meatballs or so.
Bake these beauties in the oven until crispy on the outside and beautifully golden, but soft in the middle. This will take about 30-35 minutes.
Serve these meatballs with sweet potato noodles, or noodles of choice. Or just stick a toothpick in each one, and use as a delicious hors d’oeuvres for your next function.
Want more delicious appetizers?
Why not give these amazing Baked Cauliflower Bites with Homemade Hot Sauce a try! Or, these crowd pleasing Pulled Jackfruit Nachos with Homemade BBQ Sauce.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp avocado oil or sauté in water if avoiding oil
- 1 yellow onion chopped
- 1 carrot peeled & chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 2 cups cooked green or brown lentils
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tbsp basil chopped
- 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 cup pumpkin seeds
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line a large tray with parchment paper.
- Add oil, onion and carrot to a skillet, and sauté approx 5-7 minutes, until softened. Then add the garlic and sauté 30 seconds, or until fragrant.
- Add the cooked vegetables, and all remaining ingredients except the pumpkin seeds to your food processor and pulse until well combined.
- Next, add the pumpkin seeds and continue pulsing until nicely crumbled, without over processing. Taste the mixture, and add more salt if needed.
- Form the mixture into small balls (approx 1-1.5" diameter) and place them on prepared baking sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before handling.
- Serve with sweet potato noodles, or noodles of your choice! These also make great appetizers. Just put them in a tray and stick a toothpick in each one, voila!
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