These scrumptious vegan meatballs go great with a big bowl of pasta or on a sub roll smothered in tomato sauce.

meatballs.jpg

2 cups TVP (textured vegetable protein)

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1 1/2 stalks of celery, minced

1/2 cup onion, minced

1/2 cup mushrooms, diced (4-5)

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon oregano

1 tablespoon basil

1 teaspoons garlic powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3 tablespoons tahini

1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce

1/3 cup nutritional yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, combine TVP and broth to rehydrate. Add all other ingredients except nutritional yeast and oil. Stir well to fully combine. Use your hands to roll golf ball-sized balls and press slightly to shape. Put nutritional yeast on a plate or shallow bowl and roll each meatball to cover. Spread olive oil on a baking sheet and arrange meatballs in a single layer. Bake for 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes or so, until golden brown. If using in a tomato sauce, add to the sauce 5-10 minutes before serving and carefully spoon them onto a plate to serve.

6 Responses to “Meatballs Italiano”


  1. 1 Shannon December 14, 2007 at 5:07 pm

    Those look so good!
    Im definitely going to be trying this recipe.

    Good Job!

  2. 2 Josh December 14, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    Thanks Shannon! Let us know how they turn out!

  3. 3 Jen May 17, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    These were very good but I tried to use them in soup and they didn’t hold together as well as I’d have liked. I bet they’d be perfect in pasta sauce though. (I substituted egg for the nutritional yeast and oil and it worked fine.)

  4. 4 Josh May 17, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    jen- we’ve only tried these in a pasta sauce..what kind of soup did you make? i’d love to try and tinker with the recipe to hold up well in a soup.

  5. 5 Reni October 12, 2008 at 3:57 pm

    Thanks for sharing this recipe. For Canadian Thanksgiving tomorrow, I wanted to make some TVP meatballs for myself. (rest of family are Omnis) I googled TVP meatballs and your blog (which is now on my list of those to read!) popped up in the search results with this recipe. These look yummy and I think I have everything except mushrooms and tahini. Not sure what to put in the place of the tahini, but I think I’m going to try Hummus. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

    Oh, and I love that these are baked! :)

  6. 6 KT November 10, 2008 at 12:46 am

    Mmm, MMM!! These were absolutely delicious… I made myself a “meat”ball sub (on cracked wheat bread b/c I don’t have any sub rolls… ha) w/ tons of marinara and an extra sprinkle of nooch. :D One of the tastiest dinners I have made in a long time!

    I am for sure gonna make these again. The only trouble I had with them was getting them to bind together while rolling. I added a bit more broth and just threw the nutritional yeast into the batch and that seemed to give it a more sticky consistency. Didn’t matter though, because I just smooshed them into my sammich, anyway!

    Great recipe, folks! Next up for the rest of my TVP: crabcakes!! :D :D :D

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