When my husband and I first started dating (after walking across the country together … really), we had the chance to travel around Europe a little. We tried as many new cuisines as we could, and one of the best meals we had was at a delicious Greek restaurant in downtown Brussels, Belgium. I’ve never been able to find Greek food that good since then, so I’ve been experimenting with recipes.
This is my take on Greek meatballs with cucumber sauce or keftedes with tzatziki sauce as it was called over there. I love the subtle flavors of the fennel and mint, with the slight citrus hint. My kids even liked this recipe, and I’d encourage you to give it a try!
We especially love this recipe during the summer when cucumber, fennel, and mint are fresh and available at the farmers markets. I love the savory flavors of the meat paired with the slightly sweet and citrusy flavors of the tzatziki sauce. Leftover meatballs are also wonderful on salads for lunches, just use tzatziki sauce for dressing.
If you’d like a bigger version, I also have a Greek meatloaf recipe with similar flavors. The herbs and spices I use for this recipe and many others can be found on my resources page.
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Greek Meatballs Recipe
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 large onion (grated)
- ¼ cup almond flour
- 1 TBSP fennel greens (finely chopped)
- 1 TBSP fennel bulb (finely chopped)
- 2 eggs
- 1 TBSP lemon juice
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- ¼ tsp fresh mint (finely diced)
- 1 clove garlic (minced)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- salt and pepper (to taste)
Tzatziki Sauce:
- 1 cup greek yogurt
- 1 TBSP garlic (minced)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 cucumber (finely chopped)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the meatballs and mix with hands. Add any extra almond flour if needed to make thick enough to form into meat balls.
- Form into 1 inch meatballs and place on an oiled baking sheet or in a large baking dish.
- Bake in the oven for approximately 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.
- While baking, whisk together the ingredients for the sauce.
- Serve meatballs with the yogurt sauce.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
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Do you enjoy Greek food? What’s your favorite recipe? Share below!
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Penzey’s Spices makes a great Greek seasoning blend. I just got a new jar of it, so your recipe is inspiring me to make some meatballs! Thanks Katie.
These look yummy, but is that really enough fennel and mint to taste them?
Dumb question – what size cucumber? I usually have long english cucumbers in the house – but that is A LOT of cucumber! Looking forward to trying this recipe – thanks!
I made these into patties (cook faster) and used lamb and grass fed beef. I also used Fennel powder instead of fresh fennel. They were spectacular! I paired it with your greek dressing on a salad and put a spoonfull of the tzatziki on the patty. This is going to be one of my core recipes!
Despise fennel–please suggest alternate!! Looks so delicious!!
You can just omit it completely or add more onion instead…
any type of flour will sub, just adjust the amount to get the right consistency if you sub it.
What’s the right consistency? I have standard all-purpose flour, cake flour (I think), and bread flour in the house. I don’t want to buy another one and this recipe looks interesting.
Looks delicious!
What would you serve them with?
I served them as appetizers on toothpicks and also on Mediterranean salads with feta and cucumbers and tomatoes
This sounds great! I make turkey burgers with some of the same ingredients, but not the fennel – which I love! And
Tzatziki so yummy. Pinning to try soon.
Wow! Sounds delish! We love greek food as well! Thanks for sharing.