I finally figured out how to make insanely delicious meatballs. I've made many a meatball in my day and tried a ton of combinations of ingredients. All beef. All pork. A mixture of beef and pork. Regular bread crumbs. Panko bread crumbs. Corn Flakes. Bread soaked in milk. Oh, and pan frying them was extremely important to me. I had never baked a meatball in the oven. Didn't understand it.
Then one day, I decided on a whim to use 80/20 ground beef and ground Italian sausage. And BLAMO! I fell in love with this flavor combination. I winged it with some other ingredients until I hit my meatball stride.
When I combined all my ingredients and thought of cooking them in a pan, as I always had, it didn't sit well with my brain. So I grabbed a couple sheet pans and some parchment paper and baked my meatballs for the first time in my life. It was such a relief really - no more standing over a pan turning the meatballs individually which creates an uneven triangular-circle-type meatball. I stuck them in the oven and let go of so much unnecessary maintenance.
The result was pure joy and the best meatball I ever made. This recipe is easy to put together and the meatballs freeze very well. So convenient if you want to have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and freeze the rest for meatball subs the next week. And what would an insanely delicious meatball be without a great spaghetti sauce? Be sure to check out my sauce too. This is my mom's recipe and it is too die for. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
And what would insanely delicious meatballs be without a killer spaghetti sauce?
Insanely Delicious Meatballs
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 25
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 35 meatballs 1x
Description
Yes, there's a zillion meatball recipes out there, but this one really rocks! Crispy on the outside and fluffy and juicy on the inside. Bursting with flavor! You will NOT be able to stop eating them.
Ingredients
- 1 pound of 80/20 ground beef (see note #3 below about amount)
- 1 pound ground mild Italian sausage
- 1 tablespoon onion salt (I used Trader Joe’s for this recipe-see note #5)
- 2 cups of cubed or ripped up white bread
- ½ to ¾ cup of milk
- ½ cup chopped fresh flat or curly leaf parsley
- 2 eggs
- ½ of a medium onion, finely diced
- ½ cup of parmesan shaker cheese
- 1 clove of garlic, finely diced
- extra virgin olive oil, drizzle in pan
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cube or rip apart 2 cups of bread and put in a small bowl. I used a large brioche roll from a local bakery for this and it filled two cups when cubed.
- Add ½ to ¾ cup of milk to the bread and press the bread down so the milk soaks in. Set bowl aside and let the bread continue absorbing.
- Finely dice the onion and garlic. First put onion in a pan with a small drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and pinch of salt and pepper. Cook on low to medium heat for a minute or two. Then add garlic and cook another minute or two until the garlic is fragrant. Don’t burn the garlic.
- Finely chop the parsley.
- Assemble your meatball mixture: Add the ground beef and ground mild Italian sausage, milk-soaked bread, 2 eggs, ½ cup chopped parsley, onion salt, ½ cup of parmesan shaker cheese, cooked onion and garlic mixture. NOTE: I used Trader Joe's Onion Salt for this. Regular onion salt can be very salty -- probably too salty for this recipe. Trader Joe's is really more like an onion powder with other herbs in it too.
- Using your hands, mush and squish and squish and mush all the meatball ingredients together until everything is well blended.
- Line two sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Roll your meatballs into uniform sizes so they all cook evenly. I made a small-to-medium sized ball and got about 35 meatballs.
- Put sheet pans side by side in preheated oven and cook meatballs for 20 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, open oven and sprinkle parmesan shaker cheese on top and close oven. (optional step).
- Turn broiler on high for the last five minutes to crisp the tops.
Eat them.
These are perfect for spaghetti and meatball night, meatball subs and I have even just eaten them plain as a meal the day I cook them! Enjoy!
Notes
- About your oven: Mine runs hot I’ve discovered over the years. I made this same recipe at a friend’s house and it took 25 minutes at 350, plus the extra 5 minutes under the broiler. Just mentioning it in case you have to cook a little longer.
- For the cubed bread you can use French bread, ciabatta, brioche or even hot dog rolls in a pinch.
- It’s hard to find exactly 1 pound of ground beef. I’ve made this recipe many times and it can handle up to 1.3 pounds of ground beef to 1 pound of ground mild Italian sausage. In fact, in the video I was using 1.3 pounds of ground beef.
- The ground sausage. With the pandemic, I had a hard time finding a package of ground Italian sausage a couple of times. You can always buy a package of Italian sausage with casings, cut the casings open and remove the ground sausage. I’ve actually done it this way and it works great!
- If you do not have Trader Joe's onion salt you can substitute with 1 teaspoon regular salt. As mentioned above, Trader Joe's onion salt is pretty specific and I realize not everyone has that store near them. Their product is more like a powder with dried herbs and not too salty even though it's called onion salt.
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