Albondigas

After moving to AZ we found this little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. Had the coolest entrance door and didn't seem like much at all. Took me a while to locate the restaurant again since we found it when we JUST moved to Arizona and did not have our barrings at all. Susies Mexican Cafe. I highly recommend it. This is where I had Albondigas the first time. This is where my new favorite soup was introduced to me and it was love at first 'slurp'!

I have been looking over several different recipes to find a great way to make this. I have had Albondigas at several different restaurants and the problem I noticed with being low carb is that there is always rice in the meatballs. I searched for a few different ideas that could be used to help hold the meatballs together and found that psyllium husk was a option.  It seemed to work perfectly!

I hope you enjoy the recipe as much as I did!
Normally there is Carrots but I left them out to keep the carb counts down.


Meatballs

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb ground pork
• 2.5 tsp Salt
• 1.5 Tsp Pepper
• 1.5 tsp garlic powder ( or 2 cloves garlic)
• 1.5 tsp Onion Powder
• 3/4 tsp Chili powder ( I used Ancho)
• 3/4 tsp Cumin
• 3/4 tsp Oregano (crushed)
• 4 - 4.5 T Psyllium Husk (Binder)
• 1 Egg, beaten

Vegetables

• 3 Medium Zucchini - Chunked into bite size pieces
• 3 Medium Summer Squash- Chunked into bite size pieces
• 1/2 LargeOnion- Chunked into bite size pieces
• Entire Celery bundle, diced
• 1 medium tomato, diced  (Keep separate from other vegetables regardless of the picture to the right 😉 )
• 2 roasted poblanos ,pealed and chopped ( i didn't have these when I made mine)

Soup:

• 20 Cups of Water
• 3 T soup base ( Chicken or Beef, or you can do 1/2 and 1/2)
• 2 tsp Cumin
• 1 tsp Onion Powder
• 2 tsp Salt
• 1.5 tsp Chili Powder
• Add additional seasonings of the above to create the flavor as desired

Directions:

Meatballs 

1. Mix all ingredients and form into 1-1.5" meatballs
2. Brown in a pan on all sides. Do not cook through.
3. Set aside

Soup

1. Add all vegetables except the tomatoes once the broth begins to boil
2. Cover and reduce heat to simmer for 30 min
3. After 30 min add diced tomatoes
4. Simmer for another 5 min 
5. Taste test and add seasonings as desired
6. ENJOY!!!

This makes about 12-14 Servings