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Lamb meatballs with mint and oregano, baked half sunk in a tomato, spinach and butter bean sauce under a little feta. Four small meatballs and the beans make a full dinner from one dish.
Check off ingredients as you go.
Contains eggs, gluten, milk. Check the labels on packaged ingredients:
Heat the oven to 200°C / 400°F (180°C fan). Mix the lamb, breadcrumbs, egg, half the oregano, the mint, half the garlic and a pinch of salt, and roll into 16 meatballs, each about 3.5 cm across.
Warm the oil in a shallow flameproof baking dish or ovenproof frying pan, about 28 cm, over medium heat. Cook the onion for 6 to 8 minutes, until soft, then add the rest of the garlic and oregano for 1 minute.
Stir in the passata and butter beans, bring to a simmer and fold in the spinach until it wilts.
Sit the meatballs in the sauce, pushing them halfway in, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until browned on top and cooked through to the centre.
Cooked when: 71°C / 160°F in the centre, with no pink left. A food thermometer is the reliable way to tell.
Scatter over the feta and return the dish to the oven for 5 minutes, until it softens and catches at the edges. Leave it to stand for 5 minutes, then spoon off any fat that has pooled on the surface before serving.
Bake the meatballs half sunk in the sauce rather than frying them first. The exposed tops brown in the oven, the submerged halves poach and stay tender, and the fat they release floats to the surface, where it can be spooned off.
One serving is Four meatballs with a quarter of the beans and sauce. You can switch to a smaller portion in the ingredients above; it is three quarters of this, and it contains correspondingly less energy and protein. It is an option, not a goal.
Lean beef mince instead of lamb
Leaner and a little firmer, with less fat to spoon off.
Per serving: about 115 kcal less, about 4 g more protein, about 15 g less fat.
White beans instead of butter beans
Smaller and firmer; the same drained weight.
Per serving: about the same energy, about the same protein, about the same fat.
Gluten-free breadcrumbs
They bind the meatballs the same way. Nutrition is not recalculated.
Allergens: Removes gluten. Check the label.
Per standard serving, calculated from the ingredients above. Nutrition changes with substitutions, brands and how much oil stays in the pan.
Butter beans carry nearly half the protein alongside a measured portion of lamb, and bring the fibre. The figures count all the lamb's fat, including what you spoon off.
| Energy | 550 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 32 g |
| Fat | 27 g |
| of which saturates | 12 g |
| Carbohydrate | 47 g |
| of which sugars | 7 g |
| Fibre | 10 g |
| Sodium | 750 mg |
Each ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its USDA FoodData Central values per 100 g. The whole recipe is added up and divided by 4. Raw weights are used for meat, fish and vegetables; beans and lentils are drained weights. All of the oil is counted as eaten. Added salt is not included; sodium from stock, bread, cheese and tinned food is.
| Ingredient | Weight used | Source | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| lamb mince | 360 g | FDC 174370Lamb, ground, raw | 1015 kcal | 59.6 g |
| dried breadcrumbs | 30 g | FDC 174928Bread, crumbs, dry, grated, plain | 119 kcal | 4.0 g |
| eggs | 56 g | FDC 171287Egg, whole, raw, fresh | 80 kcal | 7.0 g |
| dried oregano | 2 g | FDC 171328Spices, oregano, dried | 5 kcal | 0.2 g |
| fresh mint | 10 g | FDC 173475Spearmint, freshFresh mint is 44 kcal per 100 g on FoodData Central 173475, so the few grams a recipe uses add 2 kcal at most. That record has no sugars value, so the mint is listed here rather than counted, which keeps the recipe's sugars calculable. | · | · |
| garlic | 15 g | FDC 169230Garlic, raw | 22 kcal | 1.0 g |
| olive oil | 4.5 g | FDC 171413Oil, olive, salad or cooking | 40 kcal | 0.0 g |
| onion | 120 g | FDC 170000Onions, raw | 48 kcal | 1.3 g |
| passata | 400 g | FDC 170460Tomato products, canned, puree, without salt addedCalculated with FoodData Central's unsalted tinned tomato purée record, the closest match to sieved passata. | 152 kcal | 6.6 g |
| butter beans | 480 g | FDC 175204Beans, white, mature seeds, cannedFoodData Central has no record for tinned butter beans, which are mature lima beans. Calculated as tinned white beans, the closest tinned bean it records; the two are close in energy and protein, but your tin's label is the exact figure. | 547 kcal | 34.8 g |
| spinach | 200 g | FDC 168462Spinach, raw | 46 kcal | 5.7 g |
| feta | 50 g | FDC 173420Cheese, feta | 133 kcal | 7.1 g |
| Whole recipe | Divided by 4 | 2207 kcal | 127.4 g |
Per serving the energy is rounded to the nearest 5 kcal, grams to the nearest whole gram and sodium to the nearest 10 mg. Ingredients marked “Not calculated” are excluded and could add at most 3 kcal to the whole recipe. Calculation method 1.0, September 2026. How the calculation works.
Checked against US Food and Drug Administration, Refrigerator and Freezer Storage Chart, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Leftovers and Food Safety, FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures and FoodSafety.gov, Cold Food Storage Chart. UK guidance from the Food Standards Agency is shorter, at two days for most leftovers.
A thick, smoky chilli of lean ground beef and black beans, finished with a spoonful of lime yoghurt. A small bowl goes a long way, and it cooks on the hob or in a slow cooker.
About 1 hr 5 min · 415 kcal · 41 g protein per serving
Tender meatballs of lean ground beef baked in a garlicky tomato and spinach sauce under melted mozzarella. Five small meatballs and a slice of toast make a plate that is easy to finish.
About 55 min · 545 kcal · 47 g protein per serving