As a new mom, I am starting to introduce solids to my baby. He is already starting to show his preferences for certain foods which is so sweet to see. Two of his favorites are ground meat and sweet potatoes. He loves breakfast sausage, italian sausage, and ground beef. He also loves sweet potato cookies and sweet potato fries. I thought I would combine some of his favorites with these kale and sweet potato meatballs! They are made using clean ingredients and are lightly seasoned so that these sweet potato beef meatballs can accommodate a variety of side dishes and sauces.

several meatballs on a plate with a black spoon for serving

The traditional square meal of meat/protein, carb, and vegetable is great, but I also enjoy meals where the vegetables are more of a part of the main offering rather than the side. Things like Giant Cheese Stuffed Shells with Spinach or Broccoli Stuffed Chicken with Pesto are both healthy meals that incorporate vegetables with the meat. These Kale and Sweet Potato Meatballs are the perfect example of combining all three components of a balanced meal into one delicious bite.

I even like to do this with desserts (adding vegetables). Some dessert recipes with added veggies are chopped spinach added to these Chocolate muffins and zucchini added to these Zucchini and Chocolate Chip Muffins.

Ingredients

ground beef
sweet potato
kale
onion
egg
breadcrumbs
salt

How to Make Sweet Potato Meatballs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Begin by chopping up your kale finely. Peel sweet potato and chop it into a fine dice.

unmixed meatball ingredients in a clear glass bowl with small ingredient bowls scattered around

Add all ingredients together in a mixing bowl and combine with a spoon or your hands until all of the meatball ingredients are well-incorporated.

mixed ground meat mixture in a clear glass bowl

Form into balls roughly a ⅓ of a cup big (they will be somewhere between a golf ball and a baseball), and place onto a baking sheet.

side shot of formed meatballs on a baking sheet

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until cooked through.

Top Tip

Meatballs with sweet potato are a GREAT make ahead meal that you can prep ahead of time and freeze for later. Double (or triple) the recipe and bake the meatballs. Freeze the cooked meatballs for later use.

Substitutions and Variations

If you don't like kale, try spinach instead!

A lot of people like making turkey meatballs instead of beef meatballs, and you can definitely swap out the beef for ground turkey in this recipe.

To make these meatballs both gluten free and paleo, remove the small amount of breadcrumbs included in the recipe. The breadcrumbs work with the egg as a binder to help hold the veggie meatballs together. You can omit these ingredients, you just might find a slight difference in texture.

Too many veggies?

I packed a lot of kale and sweet potato into these veggie meatballs. Because of this, the texture of the sweet potatoes is apparent and the vegetables are visible. If you want to be more sneaky about the veggies tucked in these meatballs you can halve the amount of sweet potato and kale OR you can use a food processor to blend the vegetables more finely.

finished sweet potato meatballs with a babies hand grabbing one

What to serve with sweet potato meatballs

I purposefully kept these meatballs pretty mild in flavor so that they would be adaptable to lots of different ways of serving. Serve these meatballs on their own, with spaghetti and marinara sauce, or with BBQ sauce as a dipping sauce.

When I make these sweet potato meatballs for baby, they are kept as is. He loves them!

Other dishes that would pair well with these meatballs are:

Creamy Spinach Casserole
Leek and Potato Gratin
Garlic Parmesan Roasted Broccoli
Honey Balsamic Mushrooms
Sweet Potato and Kale Caesar Salad