Baked Gluten-Free Meatballs Recipe With Oatmeal
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This baked gluten-free meatballs recipe is using oatmeal instead of bread crumbs! These meatballs are so tender, juicy, delicious and healthy!
If you always used bread crumbs in your homemade meatballs but are now trying out the gluten-free diet, the easiest way to get rid of gluten in meatballs is to substitute bread crumbs with oatmeal! These gluten-free oatmeal meatballs taste exactly the same as regular meatballs, you won’t even notice the difference!
Many traditional meatball recipes require pan-frying meatballs in a frying pan and then simmering them in sauce, but baking meatballs in the oven is so much easier! If you were pan-frying meatballs, you have to do it in batches since they won’t all fit on a frying pan at once, then have to stand over the stove and flip the meatballs with a spatula. When you bake the meatballs, you just put them in the oven and the oven does all the work!
The baking method is completely passive – you just put the meatballs in the oven, set the oven timer and take them out when the timer beeps. The less work the better!
If you line your baking pan with foil or parchment paper, you don’t even need to wash the baking dish – just throw away the foil!
Making these oven baked gluten-free meatballs is super easy. Just combine simple ingredients into the meatball mix – ground meat, grated onion, oatmeal, egg, salt and pepper. Roll the meat mixture into meatballs, put on a baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes at 375F. That’s all there is to it!
You can make these oatmeal meatballs with any type of ground meat – ground turkey, beef, pork, lamb or chicken. Just use the meat of your choice, these gluten-free baked meatballs will taste amazing no matter which ground meat you use!
Feel free to make a double batch of these gluten-free oatmeal meatballs and freeze them for later. Meatballs freeze great in a cooked form! For more details, please see my guide on how to freeze meatballs. It’s always awesome to have some homemade frozen meatballs in your freezer for those nights when you are too busy to cook!
Other Easy Healthy Recipes For Meatball Lovers
Muffin Tin Meatloaf – you can make individually sized meatloaves by using this oatmeal meatball mixture and baking it in a muffin tin! This technique is great for portion control and freezing mini meatloaves for later!
Gluten-Free Banana Pancakes – this the best clean eating pancakes recipe ever, just 3 ingredients!
Gluten-Free Cheese Bread Rolls – these Brazilian cheese bread rolls are amazing! Naturally gluten free, so soft and delicious!
Stuffed Zucchini Boats – hollowed out zucchini halves stuffed with ground meat and cheese – mouthwatering!
Best Ever Crockpot Chili – another great recipe to make with ground meat, just dump the ingredients in a slow cooker and come back to a delicious dinner!
Baked Gluten-Free Meatballs With Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground turkey or beef
- 1 onion grated
- 1/2 cup quick oats
- 1 egg
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Mix ground meat, onion, quick oats, egg, salt and pepper in a bowl.
- Take the meat mixture by a heaping tablespoon, roll into balls and put the meatballs on the baking sheet in a single layer, so they are not touching.
- Put the meatballs in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.
These sound delicious but I can’t eat onions. Can you make a suggestion for a substitution? ( I have acid reflux and heartburn) thank you.
Just leave out the onions and use half the quantity of oats.
Thought I might as well weigh in, since I am overly familiar with the virtues of oatmeal.
My mom made the only meatballs and meatloaf I will eat, and she always used oats in her recipes (ground in a blender). It wasn’t a gluten thing, but rather because her great-grandmother made them the same way and the texture is superior–whether fresh or reheated they remain tender, never waterlogged, overly greasy or shrunken and chewy. Plus it adds additional fiber, nutrients, and improved marrying of flavors IMHO.
She also made salmon patties with canned salmon in exactly the same way and pan fried them, and let me tell you, they are a delicious way to use affordable canned salmon. She also adds minced celery to the mix with the onion and a quarter teaspoon garlic powder. I add lots of ground oregano, basil leaf, fennel seed, paprika and garlic to my italian meatballs when I make them, with a 50/50 mixture of ground italian sausage and ground beef just like the meatloaf mixture. So so very tasty, I always wind up feeding an instantly appearing horde when I make these meatballs and spaghetti, or meatloaf or salmon patties too. You can also add minced bell pepper and creole spices for a creole variation that is super yummy too, with whatever meat and in whatever shape you would like.
Sorry for the diatribe:) Thanks for reinforcing my belief in the utility (superiority) of oatmeal, and for the discussion of freezing meatballs elsewhere–which I am totally taking advantage of tonight! (Don’t forget, oatmeal was a power food for Scottish warriors in the old days–good enough for me!)
Great suggestions! Thanks so much.
Dear Honolulu, your suggestions are awesome. Thank you for sharing a bit of history, too.
The result is tender, juicy, and delicious meatballs that are also healthy. Thanks for sharing this great alternative!
Such a clever technique thanks for the tip!