Spicy Tahini Meatballs With Pita, Cucumber and Avocado

By Ali Slagle

Published March 16, 2023

Spicy Tahini Meatballs With Pita, Cucumber and Avocado
Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich.
Total Time
35 minutes
Rating
4(731)
Comments
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This sheet-pan dinner incorporates elements of koftas, fattoush and shepherd’s salad, but what ties it all together is a tahini sauce made feisty with hot sauce. Some spicy tahini sauce goes into the chicken meatballs, so they stay moist as they roast alongside torn pita, then more sauce gets drizzled over the entire dish, where its fire and creaminess is a welcome contrast to the mixture of cucumbers, avocados, mint, lime and toasted pita. Feel free to adapt the salad based on what you have; other crunchy vegetables, like snap peas or fennel, would be great, as would some chickpeas or briny feta or capers.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • 3pitas, torn into roughly 1-inch pieces
  • 5tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing
  • Kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
  • 3limes
  • ½cup stirred tahini
  • 1 to 2tablespoons hot sauce, plus more to taste (see Tip)
  • ½teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1pound ground chicken or turkey
  • 1pound cucumbers (preferably Japanese, Persian or mini, seedless cucumbers), cut into roughly ½-inch pieces
  • 2large avocados, cut into roughly ½-inch pieces
  • 1cup mint leaves, torn if large
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

825 calories; 62 grams fat; 10 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 35 grams monounsaturated fat; 13 grams polyunsaturated fat; 48 grams carbohydrates; 17 grams dietary fiber; 5 grams sugars; 33 grams protein; 1192 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Position a rack in the bottom third of the oven and heat the oven to 425 degrees. On a parchment-lined sheet pan, toss the torn pitas with 1 tablespoon olive oil and a pinch of salt.

  2. Step 2

    Finely grate the zest of 1 lime (about 1 teaspoon). In a liquid measuring cup or small bowl, stir together the tahini, hot sauce, lime zest and cumin. At this point, you want it a tad too spicy, so add more hot sauce, if needed. Transfer ¼ cup of the spicy tahini to a large bowl, along with the ground chicken and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix with your hands to combine. Using oiled hands, form 12 meatballs (2 heaping tablespoons each) and place among the pita. (It’s OK if the pita is not in a single layer.) Roast on the bottom rack until the pita is well toasted and the chicken is cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool slightly.

  3. Step 3

    While the meatballs and pitas roast, wash and dry the large bowl. To it, add the cucumbers, avocados and a big pinch of salt. Add ¼ cup lime juice from the zested lime and another lime; stir to coat and set aside. Add water to the remaining spicy tahini until it’s pourable. Season to taste with salt. (See? Not too spicy anymore.)

  4. Step 4

    Cut the remaining lime into wedges. Add the pitas, mint and remaining ¼ cup olive oil to the cucumbers and avocado. Stir gently to combine and season to taste with salt and lime juice. Eat the salad with the meatballs, a drizzle of the tahini, lime wedges and even more hot sauce, if you like.

Tip
  • You can use any hot sauce or paste you like, from harissa to Tapatío, but avoid those with a lot of vinegar, like Frank’s or Tabasco, which could make the dish too sour on top of the lime.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
731 user ratings
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Comments

Adam Yeager

Easy 5 stars. Absolute banger. Bookmarked in the classics folder immediately. Ali Slagle, Melissa Clark, and Alison Roman; the holy trinity of NYT cooking.

Kristjana

I made these meatballs last night with 93/7 ground turkey and they were a hit! instead of pita chips, I roasted a separate sheet pan with chunks of sweet potato and cauliflower seasoned with cumin, salt, and pepper, made a pot of jasmine rice, and served the warmed “dressing” as a sauce. My three teenaged boys inhaled it and my picky-eater husband even finished his plate. ;)

David Davenport

I made the recipe as written with one exception, and it was a hit. After getting a nice, toasty crispness on the pita bread, why would you add it to the salad just to make it wet and soggy? I chose to crumbled the pita toasts right when serving, maintaining a satisfying dry crunch to go along with the “wet crunch” of the cukes.

Josh

Surprisingly good. I had no pita and simply substituted torn sourdough bread slices, which were good.

Elizabeth P

We took this in a different direction: skipped the pita and didn’t do oven sheet pan method. Didn’t have tahini so used natural crunchy peanut butter instead. Shaped the turkey meat as patties to get a lot of crunchy flavor. Doubled the amount of cumin. Had Louisiana hot sauce which is vinegary so didn’t add lime juice, just added the lime zest. Doubled the amount of peanut sauce overall. Sliced a bunch of Persian cucumbers. Had peanut sauce with the patties and cucumbers and it was a divine experience.

cao

DELICIOUS! The only changes I made were to: 1) add mined garlic and dried minced onions to the meat mixture and 2) add cilantro to the salad. Next time, I would use minced fresh onion instead of dried for the meat mixture, AND I would add cilantro to the meat mixture. I used hot harissa and ended up using 5 tablespoons.

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