Blue Cheese Stuffed Meatballs with a Homemade Sauce

I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner one night and my mind kept going back and forth between a Jucy Lucy or cheese stuffed meatballs. It probably didn't help that I saw a cooking show earlier in the day about the Jucy Lucy. In the end I decided to try to make stuffed meatballs. But I made a couple mistakes. I only had blue cheese, which was good but so rich and since it's such a soft cheese, a lot of it oozed out of the meatballs during cooking. I also used too much parsley. But other than that, the meatballs had really good flavor.

I also wanted to attempt another try at making a homemade sauce. I did't have a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes but I did have a 14 1/2 oz can of diced tomatoes and a 14 1/2 oz can of fire-roasted tomatoes so I used that. Apparently I've never used fire-roasted tomatoes before because I didn't realize how spicy they are! Not a big fan! I think if I would have used regular tomatoes it would have been okay though. All in all I was happy with the taste of the sauce, just not the spiciness of it. I think I'd try to make this again and try to correct the mistakes I made.

Blue Cheese Stuffed Meatballs with a Homemade Sauce (4-6 servings):

1 lb ground turkey
2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 c minced parsley
1 egg
1/2 c panko
Blue cheese, cut into chunks
14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes
14 1/2 oz can fire-roasted tomatoes (or 1 28 oz can diced tomatoes instead of the 2 cans)
1 c minced white onion
2 tbsp minced garlic
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 c red wine
1 tsp grated nutmeg
2 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350. If not using a meatball pan, cover a rimmed baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray. Combine the ground turkey, garlic, parsley, egg and panko in med bowl and mix well with your hands. Shape into a small disc, place a piece of blue cheese in the middle and add another small disc of meat over the cheese. Carefully seal the meat around the cheese and form into a med-size meatballs. Place meatballs on prepared pan or meatball rack. Cook in the oven about 25-30 min or until cooked in the center.

While the meatballs are cooking, prepare the sauce. In a deep pan, heat oil until hot. Add garlic and onion and cook until onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Once onion is soft, add the wine to deglaze the pan, scraping up any browned bits. Cook until most of wine has evaporated, about 5-7 minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer about 20 minutes. While the sauce is simmering, grate in about 1 tsp of fresh nutmeg. If you don't want your sauce chunky, use an immersion blender to blend it down to a smoother consistency. Once the sauce is cooked, add 1-2 tbsp of brown sugar, to taste. (The brown sugar brings down some of the acidity of the sauce.)

I made some pasta to serve with the meatballs and sauce. Enjoy!




Ready to be cooked...






Cooked meatballs...






Cheese oozing out...






Sauce...






Enjoy!...