Whole30 Sausage Meatballs

My husband loves meatballs and sauce.  So, several times a year, I make a batch or two of Sausage Venison Meatballs and we have them with pasta.  Since we have started Going Whole30, we haven’t eaten any pasta, but in the back of my mind, I have been holding onto the idea of making zoodles (spiralized zucchini).  And of course, we could have had them with a simple meat sauce like Super Easy Venison Tomato Sauce, but meatballs sounded intriguing.  Whole30 Sausage Meatballs would require rethinking the binding agent which is traditionally breadcrumbs.  (Wheat is a no-go on Whole30.)

Whole30 Sausage Meatballs

Many of the recipes for Whole30 meatballs that I looked at via Pinterest didn’t include a binding agent to replace bread crumbs.  However, since I was making my meatballs with ground venison sausage, which has a very low fat content, I wasn’t sure this was going to work.  Michelle Tam of NomNom Paleo uses cooked cauliflower.  Almond flour is pretty coarse, so it would be like fine bread crumbs.

And then, on the drive to the grocery store, inspiration hit.  Mushrooms.

I purchased whole white mushrooms which I cleaned and pulverized in the food processor. (I have a Ninja <–affiliate link.)  Once the mushrooms were down to a coarse grain size, they were then perfect to aid in the formation of meatballs as I binding agent.  Five or six good sized mushrooms ended up being about a cup and a half.

Mix the ground sausage (we used venison sausage, but you can use beef, turkey or pork) with the mushrooms, eggs, onions and garlic.  Form them into balls and bake at 400° F.

I made two sizes of meatballs.  The large ones are a little bigger than golf ball size.  We ate those with zoodles (which I made with this spiralizer <– also an affiliate link).  The small ones which were about an inch in size went into Whole30 Hearty Tomato Soup to make it even heartier.

More on Whole30

We have now been Going Whole30 for three weeks.  For more information on our Whole30 journey, you can read about going Whole30 with Kids, Whole30 Day 15 and One Week of Whole30 Meals or get a few new recipes like Smoked Tri Tip, Whole30 Chicken Nuggets and Whole30 Hearty Tomato Soup.

If you are looking to get started with Whole30, I highly recommend the book that started it all, It Starts with Food and check out some of our earlier posts.  And don’t forget to download our free Whole30 Meal Planner.

PS. This post may contain affiliate links. When you click the link and make a purchase through the link, we make a little money, this helps to keep The Semiconservative Granola Girl going. Thank you for your support.