To make the Italian meatballs, I chose ground turkey. For us, we have really been substituting turkey for almost all red meat and pork. It is so much more lean and higher in protein plus has much less fat content. And truly doesn't really change the flavor. So here's what I did for meatballs:
2 pounds ground turkey
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup dry bread crumbs (mine were Italian blend)
1/3 cup fresh parsley (or 2-3 T dried)
3-4 T fresh oregano (1 T dried)
2 teaspoon fresh rosemary (same dried)
1teaspoon dry mustard(1 T prepared mustard can substitute)
1/3 cup pizza sauce (you can substitute tomato sauce, ketchup or marinara)
Healthy pinch of salt
4 garlic cloves (3-4 t of minced garlic can be used)
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and form tablespoon size meatballs. I used my Pampered Chef medium scoop to make them so they are all roughly the same size and cook equally. This recipe makes about 40 meatballs. I put a cookie sheet on my baking sheet to keep the meatballs off of the excess fluid. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until interior is no longer pink.
Then I took a package of 6 hoagies (sad because we prefer whole grain but we couldn't find any whole grain), put 4 ,eat balls in each hoagie, then I took half a jar of traditional spaghetti sauce and half a jar or pizza sauce and mixed them together. I topped the meatballs on the hoagies with the blended sauce and then took a block of mozzarella cheese and shredded atop of each hoagie. Lastly I sprinkled with Parmesan. Bake at 400 until the cheese is bubbly.
We serve with a side salad and as long as you don't put too much sauce, you can eat like sandwich. Everyone loved them, very kid friendly. Aside from the white hoagies, it's a very healthy meal as well.
