Meatballs

First of all here is a link to a great meatball recipe:

The above meatball recipe from Alison Roman is a 5 star meatball recipe. That’s why I am sending you there and that is why I am starting with it as my first recipe review on this site, because it is the best.

Now here is my basic and highly adaptable approach to making meatballs. If you’re a newer cook, just follow Alison’s recipe to the letter and you will be in excellent hands.

This business below here is me playing around with writing out how I make meatballs in a pinch and then realizing that writing out a recipe is super complicated and something I will leave to the pros. All I really wanna do is review recipes. But if you’re adventurous, read on!

Meatballs

1 package Meat of your choice
1 tbsp Montreal Steak Seasoning
1/4 cup Bread crumbs (optional + see substitutions)
1 Egg (if you like)
1 Jar of Raos Tomato Sauce (or your favorite brand)
Arugula
Salt and Pepper to taste
Parmesan
Basil (if you’ve got it)
Oil (olive oil, canola oil, avocado oil–it doesn’t really matter it’s just coating the pan)

Thaw the meat. Put the meat in a bowl. Add: seasoning (I prefer Montreal Steak but you can sub any seasoning you like or even just use salt and pepper), bread crumbs (if using), egg (if using.) Mix this all together with your hands and form the mixture into balls. Ball size is important. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to make themselves feel better. The size of your balls will determine the cooking time. Smaller balls = lower cooking time. Bigger balls = more cooking time. You decide what you’re after–it’s a personal choice.

Turn on the burner. Put a large pan on top of the burner. Add oil.

Once the pan and oil are warm add in the meatballs and cook them. For how long? See above note on size, but in general if you’re going for average size I’d say 7-10minutes with a turn in there. So 5min per side.

Then add the Raos tomato sauce into the pan. And cook for another 3-4 minutes. Check a meatball now by slicing it open to see if it is cooked through…

If it is, great! You are ready to serve. For this recipe while your meatballs were cooking you could tear apart some arugula into a bowl for each person eating the meal. Now that your meatballs are ready add them with the sauce on top of the arugula. Garnish the dish with some fresh basil and freshly grated parmesan. Boom! Dinner.

This takes about 30 – 35 min if we’re being honest. The liars will tell you it takes only 20min but they’re lying–that’s why I called them liars.

Notes: A LOT of substitutions and riffs can happen with meatballs and they will turn out great! That’s what is so wonderful about doing meatballs for dinner–they are hard to screw up, they taste like a hug, they can easily be made vegan using vegan meat and most importantly they are a crowd pleaser. Even crowds of 1 love them!!

You do not need to use egg to bind your meatballs, you can but you do not need to. I grew up on eggless, breadless meatballs. I now add either or both depending on my mood or what’s available.

Meatballs are a great vacation rental dinner because they are so malleable, easy and pleasing to everyone.

They can or cannot be served over/with: pasta, rice or vegetables.

You will develop your own special secret meatball recipe over time.

Clean up rating for meatballs is a 4 out of 5. The tomato sauce splatters.

Hot tip: if using ground beef then strain the fat off before adding the red sauce!

A little story about last night’s meatball escapade in the kitchen. I asked my sister what do you think of my website? She liked it! I told her tonight’s dinner was gonna be the first recipe. She was excited! We decided on meatballs earlier in the day because it was miserable and rainy (even though it is May and the saying is April Showers–a word needs to be had with the weather gods.) I have made meatballs a million times in my life. They are my cabin/cottage/vacation rental go to; heck, I’ve even made them camping! And yet, mistakes were made. I usually use ground turkey meat so I forgot to drain the excess fat before adding the Raos… I then tried in vain to scoop off some of the fat with a spoon. I gave up on this futile endeavor and decided fat is delicious. I didn’t check that the meatballs were cooked through before serving… they were not, so they had to go back in the pan in spite of being garnished. This was not a shining moment, but this is how it goes with cooking particularly on either the first or the millionth time you make something. The good news is that usually the second through fourth time making a dish things go perfectly! So keep that in mind when you’re planning a dinner party: never cook something you’ve never cooked before and be wary of the overconfidence with a longtime favorite dish. Consider yourself warned.

This is why meatballs are a weeknight dinner fave though, because you kinda can’t fuck them up beyond repair and they really are ready in 35 minutes or less depending on your kitchen efficiency and how many distractions are going on.

My sister would like me to note that it is best to clean up the splatters of tomato sauce immediately since this is when they still wipe up easily.