Tapas has to be one of humankind’s greatest accomplishments.
We just love the idea of sitting at a bar, ordering various plates of delicious food and sipping a glass of gorgeous Rioja.
One of the most famous dishes is ‘Albondigas’, otherwise known as ‘tapas Spanish meatballs’.
Smoked paprika and a rich tomato sauce combine to make this dish a wonderfully comforting mini-meal.
Our vegan version isn’t strictly traditional, but we take inspiration from this brilliant creation.
For the meatballs we bring together black beans, oats and walnuts.
The texture is superb. They’re soft but not mushy, while the soy sauce adds much-needed depth of flavour.
Here are a few things to know:
- You can make this gluten-free using tamari instead of soy sauce.
- We used passata because we love the smooth consistency, but you can substitute this for tinned tomatoes.
- These vegan meatballs go perfectly with crusty bread, but we’ve also served them with grains like buckwheat and quinoa.
- It’s important to avoid over-processing the meatball mixture because they’ll turn into a ‘mushy’ texture. Simply pulse until you can roll the mixture together into your hands and it doesn’t fall apart.
- You’ll also want to leave the meatballs to rest after they’ve come out of the oven. They’ll become firm and it’ll prevent them falling apart in the pan.
Spanish-Style Vegan Meatballs ✌️ Our new cookbook ONE POT VEGAN is out now 👉 sovegan.co/onepv
Posted by So Vegan on Wednesday, 5 August 2020
Smokey Spanish-Style Vegan Meatballs
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Ingredients
For the meatballs:
- 2 x 400g tins of black beans
- 2 garlic cloves
- 50g / 1.8oz rolled oats
- 80g / 2.8oz walnuts
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tbsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tbsp dried oregano
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
For the sauce:
- olive oil
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- salt and pepper
- 800g / 28.2oz passata
- 1 tsp granulated sugar
fresh parsley, to serve
crusty bread, to serve
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C / 356°F fan-assisted.
- For the meatballs, first drain and rinse the black beans, then peel the garlic cloves. Add both to a food processor, along with the oats, walnuts, soy sauce, pinches of salt and pepper, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika and oregano. Pulse a dozen or so times until the mixture is combined, but avoid turning it into a mulch.
- Next roll the mixture into 16 evenly-sized balls and transfer them to a tray. Brush each ball with olive oil, bake in the oven for 20 minutes, then remove the balls and leave them to rest on the side.
- Meanwhile start making the sauce by peeling and dicing the onion. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil to a large pan over a medium heat. As soon as the oil is hot, add the onion and fry for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile peel and dice the garlic cloves. Then add them to the pan, along with the smoked paprika and pinches of salt and pepper. Fry for 2 minutes.
- Next add the passata and granulated sugar. Stir, bring the sauce to a gentle boil, then lower the heat and simmer with the lid on for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- The sauce will be ready when it has thickened slightly and the sauce is no longer bitter. If necessary, cook the sauce for an extra 5-10 minutes with the lid off. When it’s ready, add the meatballs, stir them into the sauce and leave everything to cook for 1-2 minutes.
- To serve the meatballs, top with chopped fresh parsley and freshly ground black pepper, and serve alongside some crusty bread.
9 comments
These look sooo good!! Can’t wait to make these!! Is there another substitute for the walnuts? We have nut allergies in our household.
Thanks Tiffany! So the walnuts are really important for texture, so the best substitute that isn’t another nut is probably seeds i.e. sunflower seeds. However we haven’t tested this so we can’t be 100% certain it will work. Hope that helps!
Just made these – turned out really well, I loved the walnuts and oats as texture plus great to have whole foods rather than processed
Thank you!
These meatballs were SO delicious, I used ground almonds instead of walnuts as I had lots of that at home and wanted to use it up and it came out really well. Next time I think I will put them in the oven for a little bit longer, or maybe turn the heat up, just to give them a little bit more of a firm bite as I don’t think I cooked them in the oven for long enough so mine were quite soft, but the flavour was amazing!!
Thank you so much Ana 🙂
Thank you for the recipe, I enjoyed these tasty vegan meatballs. However my daughter found them too spicy so I’ll be reducing the amount of cayenne pepper next time.
Another seriously amazing dish. Had them with sourdough to mop up all that lovely sauce. So tasty
Can you freeze meatballs