Sage, onion and apple stuffing balls
50 min · 20 g protein · 180 cals / serving
Proper Christmas stuffing, rolled into balls and roasted until crisp and golden outside and juicy within: lean pork and turkey mince with soft-cooked onion, grated Bramley apple, plenty of sage and a little lemon zest, held together with fresh breadcrumbs. Lighter than sausagemeat, and every bit as savoury.
Ingredients
- 10g butter
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 175g raw ground pork, 8% fat, lean pork mince (about 8% fat)
- 325g ground turkey breast (99% lean), turkey breast mince
- 1 small Bramley apple granny smith apple, peeled and coarsely grated
- 60g white bread, fresh white breadcrumbs (about 2 slices)
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 tsp dried sage, or 2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
- zest of 1/2 lemon lemon zest
- a grating nutmeg
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Steps
- Melt the butter in a frying pan and cook the onion over a medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes, until soft and sweet but not brown. Tip into a large bowl and leave to cool for 10 minutes.
- Add both minces, the grated apple, breadcrumbs, egg, sage, lemon zest, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands. Fry a teaspoon of the mixture to check the seasoning, and adjust.
- Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line a baking tray with baking paper. With wet hands, roll the mixture into 12 balls and space them out on the tray.
- Roast for 25–30 minutes, turning once, until golden and crisp outside and cooked through to 71C in the centre. Serve hot with the turkey and gravy.
Good to know
Can I make them ahead?
Roll the balls up to two days ahead and keep them covered in the fridge, or freeze them raw on the tray and bag them up. Roast from frozen, adding about 10 minutes, and check they reach 71C.
Can I cook them in the turkey tin?
Yes: add them to the roasting tin for the last 30 minutes, while the turkey roasts, and they pick up the juices. They brown less but taste richer.
No Bramley?
Any tart eating apple works; a Granny Smith is closest. A small handful of chopped cooked chestnuts is a good Christmas addition too.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 144
- Protein
- (46%)
- 16 g
- Fat
- (31%)
- 5 g
- Carbohydrates
- (23%)
- 9 g
- of which sugar
- 4 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 295 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 1083 kcal goes into the pot and 930 g of ingredients comes out as about 750 g of food: 144 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.