Chicken Meatballs Meal Prep
Chicken meatballs with grated onion and zucchini worked right into the mix, served over a smoky sweet potato mash with a garlic yogurt sauce on the side. High protein, genuinely filling, and built to portion straight into containers.
Sautéing the grated veg first and letting it cool before mixing it into the raw mince is the step that keeps these meatballs together — skip it and the extra moisture makes them mushy and prone to falling apart in the oven. Rolling all 20 to an even size matters too, so nothing finishes under or overcooked.
The garlic yogurt sauce goes into a squeezy bottle so it’s ready to drizzle straight from the fridge. Portion the mash, meatballs and sauce into five containers and you’ve got lunch sorted for the week.
Chicken Meatballs Meal Prep
CHICKEN · MEAL PREP · MEDIUM
Juicy meatballs, hidden veg, real flavour
Sautéing the onion and zucchini before they go into the mince cooks off the moisture that would otherwise turn the meatballs mushy — a step most quick recipes skip, and it shows in the texture.
Rolling all 20 meatballs to the same size means they all finish cooking at the same time, whether you bake them or cook them in a pan. No cutting one open to find the rest are still raw in the middle.
The smoky sweet potato mash and tangy garlic yogurt sauce round it out into a proper meal, not just protein and a side. And with the sauce kept separate in its own bottle, everything stays fresh through the week.
High Protein Chicken Meatballs Meal Prep
Ingredients
Meatballs
- Oil Spray
- 750 g Chicken or Turkey Mince
- 8 g Smoked Paprika
- 4 g Dried Oregano
- 1 Brown (Yellow) Onion Grated
- 1 Small Zucchini Grated
- 3 Garlic Cloves Grated
- Salt & Pepper
Sweet Potato Mash
- 1 kg Sweet Potato Peeled & Chopped
- 60 ml Milk
- 14 g Unsalted Butter
- 2 Garlic Cloves Grated
- 4 g Smoked Paprika
- 4 g Ground Cumin
- Salt & Pepper
Garlic Yogurt Sauce
- 250 g Low-Fat Greek Yogurt
- 1 Garlic Clove Grated
- ¼ Lemon Juiced
- 15 g Dijon Mustard
- 5 g Fresh Dill or Flat Leaf Parsley
- Salt & Pepper
Method
- Peel and chop the sweet potato and add it to cold water. Bring the potatoes to a boil and cook for 12-15 minutes, or until fork-tender. Drain and set aside to cool slightly. Place the sweet potatoes back into the pot, add milk or unsalted butter, salt, and pepper, and mash until smooth. Add smoked paprika and ground cumin, if using, and check for seasoning. Set aside.
- Grate the vegetables into a bowl. Place a pan over medium-high heat, add spray oil and saute the grated veg for 4-5 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove and let cool.
- Add the sautéed, grated vegetables, chicken mince, smoked paprika, dried oregano, and salt and pepper to a bowl. Mix to combine and roll into 20 even-sized meatballs.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and bake for 15-16 minutes, or until golden brown. Alternatively, cook them in a pan for 8-10 minutes, or until cooked.
- Mix all the garlic yogurt sauce ingredients in a bowl and combine. Pour the sauce into a squeezy bottle and store in the fridge until ready to serve.
- Portion into 5x 750ml meal prep containers. Sweet potato mash at the bottom, four meatballs over the top, drizzle with the yogurt sauce, or add once reheated.
Why sauté the onion and zucchini before mixing them into the mince?⌄
Raw grated veg holds a lot of water, and that water would leach out into the meatballs as they cook, making them fall apart. Cooking it off first and letting it cool keeps the mixture firm enough to hold its shape.
Can I use beef or pork mince instead of chicken or turkey?⌄
Yes, the method works the same way with beef or pork mince. Cook times will be similar, just make sure they're cooked through to a safe internal temperature before serving.
How do I know the meatballs are cooked through?⌄
They should be golden brown outside and reach an internal temperature of 74°C (165°F), since this is chicken or turkey mince. If you don't have a thermometer, cut one open — it should be opaque all the way through with no pink.
Can I freeze the garlic yogurt sauce?⌄
It's best kept in the fridge rather than frozen — yogurt-based sauces tend to split and turn watery once thawed. The meatballs and mash freeze well on their own, so just make the sauce fresh closer to when you'll eat it.
