Herbed Chicken and Ricotta Meatballs in Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground chicken
- ¼ cup Italian parsley leaves finely chopped
- ¼ cup fresh basil leaves finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon coarse black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1/3 cup fresh ricotta cheese
- 1 large egg lightly beaten
For the sauce:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ Spanish onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 28- ounce can crushed tomatoes
- 1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil drained and chopped
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- Salt
For serving:
- Grated Pecorino Romano
- Fresh basil sliced
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.
- Place all the ingredients for the meatballs in a mixing bowl. Using your hands, mix the ingredients until just combined. Please don’t over-mix, people! We want these meatballs to be all light and fluffy. With damp hands, mold heaping tablespoons of the chicken mixture into balls and arrange them on the prepared baking sheet. You should have about 14 meatballs.
- Bake the meatballs for 22 minutes until lightly browned and cooked through.
- While the meatballs are in the oven, make the sun-dried tomato sauce. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a medium Dutch oven or saucepan. When hot, add the onion and garlic and sauté for 3-4 minutes until the onions become translucent. Add the crushed tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and crushed red pepper, and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Transfer the sauce to a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. (You can also use an immersion blender if you like.) Taste the sauce and season with salt.
- Return the sauce to the Dutch oven/saucepan along with the meatballs. Cover with a lid and gently simmer for 45 minutes. (You can also bake the meatballs in the sauce, covered, at 300 degrees for the same amount of time, if you prefer). The sauce will become very thick…this is a good thing.
- Serve meatballs warm topped with Pecorino Romano and fresh basil.
Notes
If you're pureeing the tomato sauce in a blender, make sure to remove the center piece in the blender's lid and hold a dish towel over the hole while you puree the sauce. If you try to pour the sauce into a blender and puree without doing this, you will end up with hot sauce splattered EVERYWHERE. Trust me.