Pantry Panic –  Chicken Mushroom Meatballs

I’m going to start a small series, these may not be recipes you can follow but they may provide some sort of inspiration. This is my first “Pantry Panic” post.

I don’t like to waste food, or buy too much, so I often have to throw random meals together with what I can find. Plus I like the challenge.

What I had:

• ground chicken
• 1 sad little egg
• italian bread crumbs
• 1 pint white mushrooms
• weird Polish mushroom soup packet
• slowly dying fresh parsley
• farfalle noodles

My other option was to make a tomato pasta sauce using a leftover jar of salsa, but I wanted a comforting creamy mushroom sauce.

I started by making chicken meatballs. About 1lb of chicken, 1 egg, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, and a good amount of a salt and pepper.

Threw that into a 400F oven for about 15 minutes. Don’t worry about completely cooking them, just want them to solidify and get some colour, they’ll finish cooking in the sauce.

Plus overcooked meatballs are gross.

Meatballs! About 1.5 tbsp sized, but you do you boo.

Threw on a pot of water to start boiling the pasta while I made the sauce.

I chopped the mushrooms into hearty slices and began to sautée until browned (some onion and garlic would have been nice here but this is what I had!)

Tossed the meatballs in there!

Whatever this says!

The packet I had was for soup, so I added significantly less water (about 1 cup to start), added it to the meatball/mushroom mixture and brought to a boil. I had to add a small amount of water to get the right saucy consistency.

Tasted it and shockingly it needed more salt (always taste your food, always.). I was worried that the dehydrated soup with less water would have been very salty, but I’m glad it turned out fine.

Simmered for a few and it was done, I added a handful of fresh chopped parsley and served this on top of pasta.

Delicious!