This simple baked meatball recipe is my most *common* floor beef recipe – with hundred of 5 star evaluations! Lined in marinara sauce and prepared in half-hour, basic Italian meatballs are scrumptious with spaghetti. Add Caesar salad with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and garlic bread! Frozen meatballs hold for two months, simply place on a baking sheet and freeze stable.

Italian Meatball Recipe with Marinara Sauce
Do you may have a go-to dish you make for firm? I’ve a number of, however the one I discover myself making over and over? My well-known Italian meatball recipe with selfmade tomato sauce!
The meatballs themselves are a little bit of an Italian American meatball, as I take advantage of all floor beef. As a substitute of floor pork and beef, which is extra conventional. I additionally bake my meatballs! As a result of, hiya, really easy!
These simple oven baked meatballs are at all times a crowd-pleaser and one in all my all-time favourite selfmade meatball recipes. You bake the meatballs on a baking sheet, so there’s no messy frying concerned! And you can also make the meatballs and the marinara sauce days upfront. Which is at all times nice while you’re cooking for a celebration or household gathering!

Meatballs on a Baking Sheet
- Making meatballs on a baking sheet is way simpler than frying meatballs!
- When you bake the meatballs, you may hold them heat in a gradual cooker.
- Simply double or triple the recipe – and no meals processor or any fancy kitchen gear required.
- Floor beef + bread crumbs + Parmesan cheese = a number of taste!
- Pair with marinara sauce – or go loopy and canopy them in bbq sauce, buffalo sauce, or cranberry sauce.
- Meatballs freeze fantastically! You possibly can freeze meatballs for as much as 2 months.
- Prepared in lower than half-hour – together with making the tomato sauce.


Components for Baked Meatballs
- Floor Meat: I counsel utilizing the very best selection you may afford! We use grass-fed floor beef from our farmers market. In the event you’d choose utilizing Italian sausage, take a look at my Italian sausage meatballs. Or use an equal quantity of beef and floor pork for additional taste!
- Eggs: Aka the binder that may maintain the meatballs collectively! I counsel utilizing giant selection eggs.
- Bread Crumbs: I choose panko breadcrumbs or Italian seasoned bread crumbs, however any selection – together with selfmade – will work. Consider should you select a flavored number of bread crumbs, it is going to alter the flavour of those meatballs.
- Spices: Italian seasoning, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, and onion powder add tons of taste with minimal effort! To make use of contemporary herbs and contemporary garlic, I’d counsel utilizing 2 cloves of minced contemporary garlic. And including a tablespoon of minced contemporary parsley and basil.
- Cheese: Grated Parmesan cheese provides a pop of taste! Asiago cheese can be a advantageous substitution if wanted.
- Water: An important ingredient on this selfmade meatball recipe. Don’t cut back it or be petrified of it; It makes the meatballs moist with out including any energy.

Components for Marinara Sauce (Tomato Sauce)
You don’t need to make my selfmade marinara sauce, however should you select to, right here’s what you’ll want:
- Olive Oil: No want to make use of the top-shelf fancy olive oil. I do counsel selecting Italian olive oil and a model or taste you take pleasure in. However on the finish of the day, any olive oil will work!
- Contemporary Garlic: I don’t counsel subbing garlic powder for contemporary garlic.
- Crushed Tomatoes: I like utilizing crushed tomatoes with basil greatest. Make certain to not sub diced tomatoes or tomato sauce. These gained’t yield the feel we would like for marinara sauce.
- Seasonings: Salt and pepper, crushed crimson pepper flakes, sugar, and Italian seasoning. These give our marinara sauce the right style. To scale back spice, omit the crushed crimson pepper. The sugar cuts the acidity of the tomatoes and I don’t counsel leaving it out.

Find out how to Bake the Meatballs within the Oven
- Cooking meatballs within the oven is an attractive factor! So a lot neater than frying meatballs – and simpler than frying a number of batches in a skillet.
- With my oven baked methodology, you can also make all of the meatballs directly. You’ll merely roll the meat combination into small balls, place them on the baking sheet, and bake for about quarter-hour.
- When you end baking them, toss them in your sauce of selection they usually’re able to devour.
That is undoubtedly one of the simplest ways to make meatballs for spaghetti and meatballs!

Find out how to Roll Meatballs
- In the event you discover the selfmade floor meat combination too sticky to roll, grease your arms with a bit olive oil!
- Use a small or medium ice cream scoop that can assist you create completely spherical and evenly sized meatballs!
- Utilizing your arms, gently easy and roll the meat right into a spherical meatball. Repeat with all floor meat combination!

What to serve with Baked Meatballs
Hoagie rolls: Try my Italian Meatball Sub Sandwiches for extra inspiration.
Pasta: I can’t consider a extra iconic pairing than spaghetti and meatballs!
Spaghetti Squash: A decrease calorie, however nonetheless scrumptious, various to pasta. Study find out how to roast spaghetti squash!
Salad: Any salad is nice with meatballs!

Greatest Meats for Meatballs? Floor Turkey or Beef and Pork?
So right here’s the deal: for tender, juicy, and flavorful meatballs, you must select fatty meat. As a result of fats equals taste! A preferred meat selection is 80/20 floor beef, and for an excellent cause. This selection is straightforward to search out, comparatively low-cost, and produces juicy meatballs.
Floor turkey – and even floor rooster – can work, however they don’t have as a lot fats as beef, so the meatballs will probably be a bit drier. In the event you’re feeling inventive, you can even mix meat varieties. We regularly use 50/50 floor pork and floor beef.
Need turkey meatballs? Attempt my mozzarella stuffed turkey meatballs or zucchini turkey meatballs!
Making Meatballs with out Breadcrumbs?
I’ve by no means made these meatballs with out bread, so I can not say for certain! Nevertheless many readers have informed me that crushed cracker crumbs or finely floor rolled oats can work as substitutes. And gluten-free bread crumbs are additionally an excellent various.

Ought to Meatballs be Pink within the Middle?
- If you realize that you just made your meatballs from 100% floor beef, you may settle for a slight contact of pink.
- Usually, it’s not a terrific thought to eat pink meatballs. And the interior temperature ought to ALWAYS be 160 levels (F) or above.
- By no means eat undercooked meatballs, particularly ones made with a floor beef and pork combination, rooster, or floor turkey.
Find out how to Retailer Cooked Meatballs
- Permit the cooked meatballs to chill totally earlier than placing them within the fridge. To hurry up the cooling course of, take away the cooked meatballs from the baking pan and place them in shallow containers.
- Switch cooled meatballs into hermetic containers and make sure you totally seal the lids. Wrap the containers with aluminum foil, then place them within the fridge.
- Retailer cooked meatballs within the fridge for 3 days. Reheat totally earlier than use!
Frozen Meatballs: Continuously Requested Questions
- These will hold, saved within the freezer, for two months. Whenever you’re able to bake the meatballs, thaw within the fridge in a single day, then prepare dinner as directed.
- You possibly can freeze cooked or raw meatballs.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and organize the meatballs aspect by aspect on the pan. They shouldn’t be touching.
- Place the sheet within the freezer and freeze till the meatballs are stable, 1 to 2 hours.
- As soon as stable, switch them right into a freezer bag. Label with the date and place the freezer bag again into the freezer.

What number of Meatballs per particular person?
- This utterly relies on the scale of the meatballs… and the appetites of these consuming them. However an excellent rule of thumb is 4 to five meatballs per particular person.
- For big events, I triple this baked meatballs recipe so there’s loads! Higher to have leftovers than not sufficient. And you may at all times freeze any additional meatballs for as much as 2 months.
Meatballs in a Sluggish Cooker?
- You possibly can put these meatballs in a crockpot, however totally prepare dinner them first. In any other case they are going to collapse.
- As soon as totally cooked, the meatballs can go within the gradual cooker. Add the sauce and hold them heat on the bottom setting. I counsel doubling the sauce should you’ll have them within the crockpot for greater than an hour.
- I don’t counsel placing these simple baked meatballs instantly pot.
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