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This recipe comes to us from our friend Brianne DeRosa at Red, Round or Green, where this recipe originally appeared.
Everybody has their favorite way of making meatballs, but I (humbly, of course) think mine are pretty great. It’s not really just my opinion; My husband grew up in an Italian-American family, and he recently told me that my meatballs are the second best he’s ever had. Considering that the “best” are the ones his great-aunt made (the ones of family legend, you know how that goes) I’ll take the compliment.
Ingredients
(Makes about 2 dozen)
- 2 lbs. ground meat — I use one pound each 85/15 grass-fed ground beef, and ground pork
- 1 small onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 4 eggs (yes, really)
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/4 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 cup rolled oats, ground in a food processor or blender into a fine powder
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Using a microplane, grate the onion and garlic directly into a large mixing bowl — this will not only break them down very finely to mix thoroughly with the meat, but will also ensure that all the juices of the onion get into the bowl.
- Add the eggs to the grated onion and garlic and beat thoroughly.
- Season with the salt, oregano, red pepper, and black pepper, and stir to combine.
- Add the oats and Parmesan cheese and mix until it’s the consistency of very wet sand.
- Add the ground beef and pork to the bowl. Using a large fork or your hands, thoroughly combine all the ingredients until you have a pretty well homogenized mixture. Set aside.
- Pour the olive oil into the center of a rimmed baking sheet and tilt to coat the pan completely with the oil.
- Form the meat mixture into balls about 1 1/2 oz. each (the size of ping-pong balls, sort of) and place on the oiled baking sheet about 1/2 inch apart.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until the meatballs are browned on top and set on the bottoms.
- At this point, they’re ready to be used in whatever way you’d like; if you’re serving them with marinara sauce, I usually suggest putting the meatballs and the drippings from the baking sheet directly into your pot of hot sauce, stirring, and letting simmer for 5-10 minutes just to bring everything together.
