I've seen so many recipes recently for meatballs and spaghetti that include mushrooms, which is wonderful! Mushrooms have so much vitamin D and fight against flu and colds! A simple way to incorporate mushrooms into your families meals without them noticing is to finely chop and mix them with ground beef. If you're making burgers, spaghetti, tacos, shepherd's pie, casserole...anything with beef, they won't taste them, but will benefit tremendously!
I wanted to make these with beans to try and keep them super inexpensive; 15 oz cans of black beans cost about 60 cents, and combined with the egg whites and nutritional yeast, these meatballs have about 31 grams of protein!
I will say that without the beef, you can taste the mushrooms more, but I personally love mushrooms! I also used oat flour in the "meatballs" to keep them together, and add healthy carbs to make this a THM E-meal, the carbs come to about 29 grams of carbs, which is still under the 45 gram limit, so you could have a piece of toasted rye or sourdough bread on the side! (Add some Cheesy Wow-Spread, or Light Laughing Cow... YUM!)
Mushroom Meatball Ingredients ( 1 serving makes 5 medium meatballs):
3/4 c. mushrooms (about 1/2 c, when finely chopped)
1/2 c. cooked black beans ( I use canned)
2 egg whites
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
3 Tbsp oat flour
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning or 1 Tbsp each of chopped basil and oregano
1 tsp granulated garlic or 1 garlic clove chopped
1 tsp each salt and pepper
1 tsp avocado or coconut oil
1/2 c of vegetable broth to cook the mushrooms
Instructions:
Finely chop the mushrooms, VERY small pieces please. Sautee the mushrooms with 1 tsp of avocado oil, and add the vegetable broth as the pan needs it while you brown the mushrooms thoroughly. The browner the meatier! While the mushrooms cook, mash the beans and mix them with the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Once the mushrooms are very brown, stir them in the bowl. Roll the mixture into meatball sized balls, and place on a sprayed baking sheet, bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Try and remove them from the oven while they're still slightly wet, they will get drier as they cool.
To serve: I had these on half of a Spaghetti Squash, but Zoodles would be yummy too, any kind of sugar free marinara sauce would be delicious, or just squeeze some lemon and grate a tiny bit of Pecorino Romano cheese on top!
Tip: If you grind a big batch of oats into flour in a high power blender or grinder at the beginning of the week, it makes it so easy to make baked goods for the family! Replace white flour in any recipe with it, make homemade cookies or Trim Healthy Pancakes (in the original Trim Healthy Mama book pg. 223).
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