Recipe: Oil-Free Chicken Meatballs & Tomato "Minestrone" Soup

Cooking is fun, especially when you get to cook for yourself (and loved ones). For me, I cook for myself....for my office lunch the next day.

So every now and then, I'd ask myself what should I cook? Especially should I want something with less oil and salt? That's when I began experimenting and fooling around :)

This was my packed lunch a couple of weeks back. It was a part of my #LunchboxMonday challenge from Jewelpie.

A bowl of soup and some chicken meatballs. Yums?

Some of my friends had asked me for the recipe, and me being horrifyingly lazy, took quite a while to write up this recipe to post it out (cause I generally whip something up spontaneously without much thought about following recipe instructions or writing anything down lol). So here you go. Enjoy :)

Oil-free chicken meatballs

Ingredients

• 200g minced chicken
• ½ carrot, finely diced
• ½ onion, finely diced
• 2 bird’s eye chilli, finely diced
• ½ teaspoon ground flax seeds
• ¼ teaspoon paprika powder
• 1 egg
• 1 ½ tablespoon oats (I used organic rolled oats, but instant oats are fine too)
• 5-7 leaves of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• Salt & pepper for taste
• ½ cube of chicken stock
• 1 liter water

Directions

• Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan & add in the chicken stock. Swill the concoction occasionally to ensure that the stock is fully dissolved in the water. This will be the light broth to cook the meatballs.
• Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
• Using a spoon (or a melon scoop if you have any), scoop the mixture and make it as round as you can before gently lowering it into the boiling pan. 
• *Protip* wet your utensil before each scoop to make it easier to pick up the mixture without too much hassle.
• Depending on the size of the chicken balls, allow it to cook for about 2-3 minutes before scooping them out into a bowl.
• And you’re done! Garnish your bowl of chicken meatballs with your favourite side salad and seasonings to complete the look.

Tomato “minestrone” soup

Ingredients

• 1 stalk of celery, sliced
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced
• 1 russet potato, cubed
• 1 can of stewed tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• ¼ tsp dry basil (optional)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 1 liter water
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Directions

• Sauté cubed potatoes on a saucepan with a tablespoon of olive oil. This is to ensure that the potatoes will not crumble easily when added into the soup later.
• Add water into a pot and bring it to a boil. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook it on high heat for about 10 minutes before reducing the flames to medium heat.
• Continue to let it simmer for approximately 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Remove bay leaves. Your  pot of soup is now ready to be served! :)