Masala Meatballs

The Italian in me loves a good meatball, and the foodie in me loves experimenting with new ingredients. Believe it or not, I hadn't tried cooking with Harissa until I decided to make this recipe. What is Harissa, you may ask? It's a spicy, fragrant paste made from chilis, spices, and sometimes rosewater. It has a bouquet of aromatic North African flavour; think spicy Moroccan cuisine. That being said, I combined it with the spices of Garam Masala for these super flavourful meatballs.

The meatballs only take 5 minutes to throw together, and the sauce basically makes itself. If you're a big olive fan (I am, but the hubby isn't), throw a handful of kalamata olives into the sauce to punch up the flavor another notch.



Here's my biggest meatball-making secret: grated onion. It might sound weird, but using a normal box grater to shred an onion will leave you with small pieces (so you don't end up with huge chunks of onion in your meatballs), and the juices that come out of the onion when you grate it keep the meatballs really moist during cooking. Trust me on this one - grate your onions!

I served up these meatballs with couscous cooked in vegetable stock, and some steamed cauliflower and spinach with turmeric. For leftovers, you could turn the meatballs into a wrap with some cucumber, lettuce, and maybe a little yogurt to cool down the spice!

Pin me!!