Skip to main content

Baked Sun-dried Tomato & Basil Chicken Meatballs with Summer Squash Sauce

A lighter take on an Italian classic. These flavorful, moist chicken meatballs are nestled on a bed of whole wheat pasta tossed with a zesty summer squash sauce.

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Basil and sauce work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and 701 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep20 min
Cook40 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Basil + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Basil + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Garlic + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, onion, garlic, chicken, wheat, egg, yogurt):

  1. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  2. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  3. Basilbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, onion, garlic, chicken, wheat, egg, yogurt. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).