Deconstructed Greek Meatball Gyro Bowls with Spiralized Carrots
Try this Deconstructed Greek Meatball Gyro Bowls with Spiralized Carrots recipe, or contribute your own.
Try this Deconstructed Greek Meatball Gyro Bowls with Spiralized Carrots recipe, or contribute your own.
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- for the salad:
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 pound ground lamb lean
- 2 large carrots peeled blade d, noodles trimmed
- for the meatballs :
- 2 tablespoons freshly chopped flat leaf italian parsley (or 1 ta
- salt and pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/
- olive oil to brush with (about 1 tablespoon)
- 1 large red onion peeled and diced
- 5 medium vine tomatoes seeded and chopped
- 6 packed cups spinach
- 1 tablespoon chopped mint to garnish
- for the tzatziki sauce:
- 1 cup plain nonfat greek yogurt
- 1/4 large seedless english cucumber peeled and diced
- 2 minced garlic cloves
- 1 heaping tablespoon freshly chopped dill
- Carbohydrate 5.8636762540312 g
- Cholesterol 55.1870716833333 mg
- Fat 18.0273094910656 g
- Fiber 1.64199323249355 g
- Protein 13.6876233132907 g
- Saturated Fat 7.74674786666977 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (192g)
- Sodium 69.4031829368745 mg
- Sugar 4.22168302153765 g
- Trans Fat 1.42121969234988 g
- Calories 240 calories
Step-by-step
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
- Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the carrot noodles for just 2 minutes to lightly soften. If you’d like them softer, leave them for 3-5 minutes. Drain into a colander and set aside. Note: you can also serve the carrot noodles raw and skip the boiling step (it’s personal preference.)
- While waiting for the water to boil, prepare the meatballs. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground lamb, parsley, oregano, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper. Mix well. Using your hands and about 2-3 tablespoons of meatball mixture at a time, form balls and set onto the parchment paper lined baking tray. Continue until 16-18 balls are formed. Brush each with the olive oil. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes or until no longer pink inside.
- Meanwhile, divide the carrot noodles evenly into six bowls. Chop the spinach and divide evenly into the bowls. Place the onions and tomatoes in a bowl and toss together. Sprinkle the spinach with the chopped onions and tomatoes. Set all aside.
- Prepare the tzatziki. Put all of the ingredients for the tzatziki into a food processor and pulse until creamy. Taste and adjust if necessary.
- Once the meatballs are done, finish assembling the bowls. Add three meatballs per bowl and drizzle with the tzatziki sauce. Garnish with mint and serve.
Boiling spiralized carrots for precisely two minutes prevents them from turning into mush while still eliminating the raw, crunchy bite that overpowers ground lamb. Handling multiple components simultaneously requires disciplined parallel processing. Baking the meatballs at 425 degrees Fahrenheit takes roughly twelve minutes, which leaves a very narrow window to blanch the carrot noodles, chop the spinach, dice the tomatoes, and pulse the Greek yogurt tzatziki in a food processor. Missing that precise temporal alignment results in either cold meatballs or waterlogged vegetables.
Managing Simultaneous Kitchen Tasks
Ground lamb demands careful attention to fat rendering during high-heat roasting. Brushing the shaped meatballs with olive oil before they enter the oven promotes browning, but excess rendered fat can pool on the parchment paper and smoke if the oven temperature drifts. Processing the tzatziki sauce requires draining excess liquid from the grated English cucumber beforehand; failing to squeeze out that moisture turns the yogurt watery and dilutes the dressing. Fresh mint and flat-leaf Italian parsley must be chopped cleanly with a sharp chef's knife rather than a dull blade, which bruises the delicate leaves and releases bitter chlorophyll compounds into the garnish.
- Bake the lamb meatballs until no pink remains in the center rather than relying strictly on the twelve-minute timer, since oven hotspots vary significantly.
- Submerge blanched carrot noodles in an ice bath immediately after draining if prepping ahead, halting the residual carryover cooking completely.
- Pulse the tzatziki ingredients in short increments to prevent the cucumber from releasing too much water into the yogurt base.
