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I don’t give myself a label with it comes to how I eat. I focus on listening to what my body wants and just focusing on eating real food. It really is as simple as that my friends. Lately my body has been wanting all the veggies and less meat and I am rolling with it. I meal prepped a bunch of plant based goodies in my instant pot this week, so I could just easily throw things together to makes some yummy plant based meals.

I meal prepped everything from scratch in my instant pot for some quick meal prep action. These items included:

  1. Steamed lentils
  2. Steamed black beans
  3. Quinoa
  4. Steamed spaghetti squash

Once I had prepped all those goodies it was just putting together a variety of ingredients to create some yummy meals, like these Meatless “meatballs.”

For these meatless “meatballs” here are the ingredients you are going to need:

  1. Steamed lentils
  2. Onions
  3. Red bell pepper
  4. Mushrooms
  5. Zucchini
  6. Cooked quinoa
  7. Almond meal
  8. Cilantro
  9. Seasoning

Simply add all the above ingredients in your food processor or a high powered blender and pulse a couple times until you get desired consistency. Now there is a difference between pulsing and processing so please make sure you just pulse a couple times or else you will end up with a paste versus a dough like consistency.

You want to be able to easily form balls with your dough. If the dough is too wet you can add in more bread crumbs or almond meal. Adjust seasoning as needed if adding in more almond meal or bread crumbs. I then wet my hand a little bit to make my balls perfectly round because the dough can be sticky.

I then heat my cast iron skillet with some avocado oil and cook a couple minutes each side to brown my meatballs. Then I carefully transfer the cast iron skillet to my oven and broil for a few minutes, keeping an eye on them so they don’t burn. 

I then serve with my spaghetti squash that I steamed in my instant pot with tomato sauce and fresh cilantro on top. You can also crumble the meatballs up to form a meatless sauce if you didn’t want to do the meatballs.

Meatless Meatballs

Makes about 14 small meatballs

Ingredients

  • 1 cup cooked quinoa
  • 1 cup vegetable broth
  • 1 cup green lentils cooked
  • 1/2 cup bread crumbs or almond meal
  • 1-2 tbsp avocado oil
  • 1/3 cup diced onions
  • 1 basket mushroom diced
  • 1 Red bell pepper diced
  • 1/2 cup diced zucchini
  • 3 Garlic Cloves minced
  • Salt + pepper
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1/3 cup diced cilantro
  • 1/2 tsp Cumin
  • 1/2 tsp Coriander

Instructions

  • Cook quinoa with vegetable broth for 15 minutes
  • Add 1 tbsp oil to pan, sauté onions, red bell pepper, mushrooms, salt + pepper for 5 minutes.
  • Once quinoa is done let cool
  • Add cooked lentils, quinoa, sautéed veggies and mash. I like to add mine to food processor and process a couple times.
  • Add rest of ingredients and mix
  • Form into balls
  • Add 1 tbsp of oil to cast iron skillet with oil and cook a couple minutes each side
  • Carefully transfer cast iron skillet to oven and broil for a few minutes