Meatballs ready to bake
Meatballs are very flexible and easy to make if you have some ground meat. I’ve used ground pork and ground beef, only ground beef, or ground turkey. My favorite is to use half ground pork and half ground beef but ground pork isn’t always easy to find. The last time I made them with ground turkey at my youngest’s request. I usually bake them in the oven, then add them to heated marinara sauce.
Simple Italian Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef or turkey or pork or combo
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup crushed plain crackers or bread crumbs
- 1 egg
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley if you have some
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Mix all this up and then form into small balls with your hands. The meat mix will stick less if you wet your hands with cold water before starting to form the meat balls.
- Bake at 350 until done, probably 25 to 30 minutes. You can also fry them in a skillet if you'd rather. Cut one open to make sure they're done.
You can often find decent jars of sauce on sale or make your own. Try this one. These also make excellent meatball sandwiches, of course.
You can easily double or triple this recipe and freeze these meatballs after cooking. If you do, flash freeze them so you can pull out just what you need. Line them up on a cookie sheet and freeze, then put them in your freezer container or bag or vacuum sealer so they won’t be all stuck together.
In addition to the traditional marinara sauce, you can serve meatballs with all kinds of sauces and gravies. Here are some ideas for what to do with meatballs.
Last night I saw a commercial for olive garden and there provolone stuffed meatballs. How delicious would that be with some pasta sauce and garlic toast. I love Italian food.