Homemade Meatballs

For this recipe, I usually use all beef of mix a variety of other ground meat like pork lamb. For this recipe, I used a pound of ground pork in additional to the 1 ½ lbs of beef. You end up with a juicer meatball, and my kids tend to like it a little better. Feel free to try different options and see what you like best.

Make sure you take out your meat from the freezer at least a day in advance to make sure it's completely thawed out.

Chop the onion finely, or my preference for this recipe, is use a box greater to get the onion really fine. Mince the garlic cloves. Chop about a tablespoon of fresh parsley. I generally like to use all fresh herbs in addition to the parsley like oregano, thyme, basic, or marjoram. But if you don’t have fresh you can use a dried Italian seasoning mix as I did here. Feel free to adjust the amount of seasoning based on preferences.

Mix up the egg and add into a bowl with the meat, and start to mix the meat and egg together. I usually add the onion and garlic next and slowly add the herbs, salt, and pepper as I mix.

Finally, slowly add in the breadcrumbs as you completely mix everything together. I prefer to use panko break crumbs, but you can certainly use any kind you like or blend up some old bread in a food processor if you don’t have any breadcrumbs.

Once completely mixed, add the oil to a frying pan, preferably an oven safe pan. Heat the oil to medium heat on a stovetop. Also, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Start to form meatballs to whatever size you like. Mine are normally a little larger than a golf ball, and add them to the fry pan. Give them a few minutes to brown and then turn the meatballs to the other side to continue browning for another 3-4 minutes.

Then put the frying pan into the oven for approximately 15-minutes (depending on size of the meatballs) to finish cooking the meatballs until at least 165 degrees internally or completely browned throughout. I prefer to cook with a food thermometer to ensure they’re completely cooked through.

Now, you don’t have to finish in an oven. You could continue to turn the meatballs a few times in the pan to brown all sides and put a lid on the frying pan for a few minutes with a lid on until they reach 165 degrees internally. However, I just find it easier to finish in the oven.

There are a million ways to use these meatballs. My family loves them all by themselves, on a hoagie as sub, or with our favorite pasta/sauce.

Enjoy!