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Sheet Pan Teriyaki Meatballs & Roasted Veggies :: Gluten Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free, Nut Free, Refined Sugar Free

March 8, 2022

A whole dinner all on one sheet pan! The kids will love these sweet, sticky teriyaki meatballs and sweet roasted veggies!

Sheet Pan Teriyaki Meatballs & Roasted Veggies :: Gluten Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free, Nut Free, Refined Sugar Free

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Real life, real food

For those of you who have followed me for a while on social media, you know that our family has been in the building and moving process for the last year – with the last 5 months living somewhere other than “home.” I haven’t overly talked about it, as I like to keep things zeroed in on our real food goals in this space, but let me just be real for a minute! Having a family, moving, cooking in someone else’s kitchen, and trying to keep “normalcy” for the kids…its a stressful, full-time job! While life has been a little extra busy, I’ve found it harder to blog, but what I *have* found, is that you all do enjoy these simple, everyday meals that are the only thing I have had time to write up for you, and that makes me super happy. It tells me that you are real people, not just looking for the fancy shmancy “health” food treats…you are looking for real food for everyday life!

Momma’s secret weapon for a busy weeknight…

Sheet pan dinners! Oh sure, the Instant Pots are all the rage. And quick skillets are great too. But seriously…dump it all onto a sheet pan and it cooks while you tend to other matters in the house or with the kids? Sign. Me. Up. I cannot tell you how much I adore that whole “kill two birds with one stone” thing – and sheet pan dinners allow me to get dinner in the oven, and be hands free for other things while it cooks.

What is teriyaki?!

In short, this sweet, sticky sauce is Asian inspired, and it usually used to toss with simple stir fry. I have found over the years that it is a great way to get veggie hesitant kids to try a stir fry, and it couldn’t be easier to make. Traditional teriyaki sauces or those that you find in the store will be soy based, which we avoid in our house, so years ago I developed a teriyaki sauce that we could enjoy in our house. I hear from you all frequently that your little ones adore it!

The Method :: The 5-Minute Teriyaki Sauce

Making versus buying this sauce may seem like a redundant extra step, but not only can the teriyaki be whisked up in 5 minutes, it can be made days in advance. Simply add all of the teriyaki sauce ingredients to a small sauce pan and whisk until thickened. Primal Kitchen does have a soy free, great teriyaki sauce if you prefer to buy it! It doesn’t usually fit in my budget, so I tend to just make my own.

The Method :: The Veggies

The sky is the limit here! For this dinner, I used what I had left in my veggie bin this week. I would definitely encourage you to try the purple onion and cabbage – they both get so sweet and kid friendly with roasting! It is a great budget saver as well! Get all the veg cut up into slightly larger than bite-sized pieces, and just toss them on the sheet pan with some olive oil.

The Method :: The Meatballs

These meatballs are SO delicious, and you can just roll them up and place them right on the sheet pan with the veggies! It doesn’t get any easier than that! The meatballs can also be made in advance – you can even freeze them if you have a prep day and want to stock up. That way on a busy weeknight you just have to pull them from the freezer.

The Method :: Brushing the Teriyaki Sauce, and Roasting

Once your meatballs are rolled up, brush some of the teriyaki sauce on each of the meatballs so their tops are covered – we aren’t looking for perfection here by the way! Then drizzle the rest of the teriyaki sauce over the veggies in the pan and roast the sheet pan off for 20 minutes.

Serving suggestions

We love to serve our teriyaki stir fry over rice, but if you prefer grain free, it is absolutely delicious over a baked sweet potato (or regular potato). I also think a little rice ramen (Costco carries this brand btw) would be incredible! Another way to serve would be to add another sheet pan of veggies to roast right along with this sheet pan and just have extra veg.

Prep ahead tips

While the actual roasting of this dinner is just a quick 20 minutes of hands free time, there are a couple of steps to get to that point, and you can do some of it ahead of time. You can make the teriyaki sauce days in advance so that part is done – you could even chop the veggies on a prep day so that it dumps in the pan fast. The meatballs are definitely something that can be rolled up ahead of time and frozen on a prep day. This sheet pan meal would also make a great meal prep for mom’s lunches all week to pull from. Make it up on a Sunday, and warm it up everyday for lunch!

Print Recipe

Sheet Pan Teriyaki Meatballs & Roasted Veggies :: Gluten Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free, Nut Free, Refined Sugar Free

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

For the 5 Minute Teriyaki Sauce ::

1/3 cup coconut aminos
¼ cup water
¼ cup raw honey
2 tbsp blackstrap molassess
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp tapioca starch

For the Veggies ::

2 tbsp olive oil
1 purple onion cut into ½ inch thick strips
½ small head of cabbage cut into ½ inch thick strips
2 bell peppers cut into 1 inch strips and then halved to make them bite sized
2-3 cups broccoli florets
1 medium/large carrot peeled and julienned (or bite sized pieces in the shape you like)

For the Meatballs ::

1 lb grassfed ground beef
1 egg
¼ cup GF panko bread crumbs or GF flour blend
1 tbsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp sea salt
¼ tsp black pepper
Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees and get a large sheet tray out. The sheet tray does NOT need to be lined with parchment or greased.

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees, and get a large sheet tray out. The sheet tray does NOT need to be lined with parchment or greased.

Make the Teriyaki Sauce ::

Put everything into a small sauce pan, and bring the heat to high.
Use a whisk to stir every so often until it comes to a simmer, then continually whisk for about 1 minute until the sauce thickens. Turn the heat off and set the sauce aside.

Get the veggies ready ::

Toss all of the veggies with the olive oil on a large sheet tray so that the veggies are coated evenly.

Make the meatballs, assemble, and bake ::

Mix all of the meatball ingredients in a small mixing bowl until combined evenly.
Roll 1 – 1 ½ inch meatballs and place them on the sheet tray with the veggies – they can rest right on top of the veggies or on the sheet tray.
Brush each meatball with the prepared teriyaki sauce, and then drizzle the rest of the sauce over the veggies on the sheet tray.
Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

Notes

If you don’t have access to good GF Panko crumbs, you can use any GF Flour Blend, or something simple like rice flour or even cassava flour if you are grain free.
Meal prep tips! You can make the teriyaki sauce days in advance so that part is done – you could even chop the veggies on a prep day so that it dumps in the pan fast. The meatballs are definitely something that can be rolled up ahead of time and frozen on a prep day.
The overall consensus for my kids is that the teriyaki sauce as written here is overly sweet for them – I think it tastes like a normal teriyaki you’d buy in the store which is why I left it as is. If you have little ones at home that aren’t trained toward sweet yet, I’d pull the sweet back a bit!
Change up the veggies to what is in season!

More real food recipes you might like! ::

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Dinner Ideas Healthy Kids and Teens Nourishing Staples Real Food 101 Real Food Tips

One Pan Creamy Baked Chicken and Broccoli

February 4, 2022

Busy weeknights were made for dinners like this! Just one pan and a 5 minute prep for a creamy, decadent, baked chicken and broccoli dinner!

One Pan Creamy Baked Chicken and Broccoli

Just because I’m a food blogger and cookbook author…

…doesn’t mean that every meal is fancy. Does that surprise you? I know that sometimes when I talk to people, I feel like they are surprised that I don’t make fancy dinners every night. Behind this screen is a super real momma, with a super real 3-school-aged-kid schedule, and a super real budget. So while I do love to blog fun, new recipes to get everyone excited about eating real food, I have to remind myself sometimes to pull back to my “roots” and just blog some of my real, everyday food as well. Because *that* my dear friends is how we do real food everyday. You’ll burn out from it if you don’t have some of these really easy dinners up your sleeve!

All real food on a budget is the name of the game!

Because the real food part really does matter. Sure, we’ll do some out to dinners occasionally, or even some store bought packed snacks, but for the most part, I try to follow that whole 80/20 thing, and in my house its more like 90/10, because my experience has been that real food is actually more affordable than going out to eat, buying packaged and processed food, and even more affordable than boxed “healthy” dinners.

5 Minute Prep? Yes please!

YES, I absolutely think it is important that we *slow* down and enjoy cooking in our family kitchens again. I’m a huge advocate of the family dinner table, and going back to showing kids how to cook, where their food comes from, and the beauty of preparing food for our families. But that doesn’t always have to mean an all day slow cooked roast, or a fussy prepped lasagna. It can simply be chicken prepped with some yummy seasonings, and drenched a cream sauce that was whisked up in minutes!

The Method :: The Chicken & Broccoli

To start your dinner prep, you’ll rinse and pat dry your chicken breasts and prep them right in the pan you will be cooking in. Coat the chicken in some olive oil, and season to your liking. I left some seasoning instructions, but truthfully, this is one that I don’t measure – I’m talking grab the seasoning jars, and just sprinkle along as I go! Once the chicken is seasoned, you’ll spread the broccoli around the pan, and get the sauce made.

The Method :: The Dairy Free Cream Sauce

This is as easy as it gets! Measure it all up in your liquid measuring cup, give it a whisk, and pour it over the chicken. You can play around with the amount to your taste, and if you want more sauce, just make more! If I serve this meal with pasta, I tend to lean more toward the 2 cups of coconut milk so that my pasta has plenty of sauce to soak in.

The Method :: Baking the Chicken

Once the sauce is in the pan, you’re ready to bake. And that means you’re hands free for 25 minutes! You can either help kids with homework, boil the pasta for the chicken meal, or you can sit with a book for a few minutes! If you plan to serve your chicken with baked potatoes or sweet potatoes, just be sure you get those in the oven about 10-15 minutes before the chicken so they have enough time to get soft – I like to cut them in half or quarters to be sure they roast fast enough.

Serving suggestions!

Serving this meal over your pasta of choice works so well and feels so decadent! A lot of the times, I serve over a baked potato or sweet potato, which can bake at the same temperature as the chicken. Depending on the size of your potatoes, and how you cut them, you’ll need to put the potatoes in before the chicken, I usually bake small sweet potato halves, so I put them in about 15-20 minutes before the chicken goes in, OR I bake them on a prep day and just warm them up when the chicken is cooking.

Let’s talk real life

Because I want you to actually make this! Earlier this week, I shared to my Instagram how I prepped this chicken dinner before I left to pick kids up from school. The beauty of a recipe like this is that it can be prepped a day or so in advanced, and put in the fridge until you need it. I prepped the pans for this dinner, left to get the kids, and came home to pop it in the oven. You can also bake this meal off, and eat lunch off from it all week long, dear momma. THIS is how we can get real food into real life mommas, my friends!

Print Recipe

Creamy Baked Chicken & Broccoli

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

For the Chicken & Broccoli ::

4 boneless chicken breasts rinsed & pat dry
2 tbsp olive oil
½ to 1 tsp sea salt
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ to ½ tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp Italian Seasoning
1 head of broccoli florets

For the Dairy Free Cheesy Cream Sauce ::

1 ½ – 2 cups coconut milk
2-3 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 – 2 tbsp tapioca starch Depending on how thick you want the sauce
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
½ tsp sea salt
Pinches of black pepper to taste

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
Put the chicken into a 9×13 baking dish, and coat with the olive oil. Sprinkle the seasonings evenly over the top – no I don’t typically mix the seasonings separately, and I don’t usually even measure. This is just sprinkle and go on a busy day for me 😊
Place the broccoli florets around the chicken in the pan, nesteling it down on the sides of the chicken and around the pan.
In a liquid measuring cup, measure out your coconut milk, and then add in the rest of the Cream Sauce ingredients. Whisk the cream sauce to combine right there in the liquid measuring cup, and then pour the sauce over the chicken and broccoli
Bake the chicken, uncovered, for 25 – 30 minutes depending on the thickness of your chicken. Chicken is supposed to have an internal temperature of 165 degrees, so I tend to take it out around 160 degrees, and let it continue cooking to the 165 while it rests. No I don’t tend to take the temperature, but you can!
Once the chicken is done baking, let the pan rest about 5 minutes or so before cutting so the juices have a chance to redistribute back into the chicken.
Serve your creamy baked chicken & broccoli over your choice of pasta, baked potato, or sweet potato! See the Notes section for tips on baking the potatoes at the same time as the chicken.

Notes

You can swap the coconut milk for whole milk or cream if you can have the dairy. I’m not sure how almond milk would taste, but it should still make a good cream sauce if you prefer that.
You can swap the chicken breast for chicken thighs if that is what you have, or you prefer that taste – you’ll just want to pull the cook time down to about 15-20 minutes since those are smaller.
You can swap the tapioca starch for arrowroot starch, potato starch, or corn starch. If you leave the starch out, you will not get a creamy sauce – it will be runny.
Serving suggestions! Serving this meal over your pasta of choice works so well and feels so decadent! A lot of the times, I serve over a baked potato or sweet potato, which can bake at the same temperature as the chicken. Depending on the size of your potatoes, and how you cut them, you’ll need to put the potatoes in before the chicken, I usually bake potato halves, so I put them in about 15-20 minutes before the chicken goes in, OR I bake them on a prep day and just warm them up when the chicken is cooking.

More real food recipes you might like ::

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