Juicy, tender, and so easy to make!
This meatball recipe is made with ground beef, seasonings, and breadcrumbs and can be baked right away or prepped in batches and frozen for easy weeknight meals.
Holly’s Recipe Highlights for This Meatball Recipe
- Flavor: These meatballs are tender and juicy with an Italian-style seasoning. The seasoning can be changed based on the recipe you’ll use the meatballs for.
- Difficulty: This meatball recipe is easy with just 3 steps: mix, shape, and bake!
- Technique: Mix gently; overmixing can cause the meatballs to become dense.
- Swaps: Make them with ground beef or any combination of beef, pork, or sausage.
- Freezing: Double or triple this meatball recipe and freeze them either before or after baking for quick weeknight meals.
Ingredient Tips For Great Meatballs
- Meat: Use either all beef or a combination of beef and pork. A little fat keeps them juicy, so I recommend lean ground beef (80/20). You can also swap in some veal, lamb, or lean Italian sausage.
- Egg: Binds the meatballs.
- Breadcrumbs: Seasoned breadcrumbs add flavor, but you can use any breadcrumbs or cracker crumbs.
- Milk: Milk gives these meatballs a tender texture and mixed with the breadcrumbs, it keeps the meat from being too dense.
- Onion: Adds flavor. It can be replaced with onion powder.
- Seasonings: Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese flavor the meatballs. Change the seasonings or add fresh herbs to match the other flavors in your meal.
They can be served with spaghetti or as an appetizer (like Grape Jelly Meatballs).
Did your family love these easy meatballs? Leave us a rating and a comment below!
Easy Meatball Recipe
This easy meatball recipe is so easy to make and they always come out juicy and tender.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 pound lean ground pork or additional ground beef
- ½ cup seasoned bread crumbs
- ⅓ cup milk
- ¼ cup finely diced onion *see note, or ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley or 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning optional
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt more to taste
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large rimmed baking pan with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, add beef, pork, breadcrumbs, milk, onion, parsley, parmesan cheese, egg, and seasonings. Gently mix until combined.
- Shape the meat mixture into 48 meatballs, approximately 1 ½ tablespoons each, and place on the prepared baking pan.
- Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until the meatballs reach 160°F.
- Serve with tomato sauce if desired.
Video
Notes
*Onion: For a milder flavor, soften the onion in a skillet with a little bit of butter before adding to the meatballs or replace it with ½ teaspoon of onion powder.
To serve with pasta sauce, stir the cooked meatballs into the desired amount of sauce and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes on the stovetop.
- To freeze, prepare as directed and freeze on a baking sheet before or after baking. Transfer to a freezer bag for up to 4 months.
- To bake raw frozen meatballs, add 6 to 10 minutes to the cooking time and ensure the meatballs reach 160°F.
- To heat cooked meatballs from frozen, add to a skillet with 1/2 cup water. Cover and simmer until heated through, for 10 to 12 minutes, adding more water as needed.
- To heat cooked meatballs in pasta sauce, add ½ cup of water to the sauce and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until the meatballs are heated through.
Nutrition Information
Serving: 4meatballs | Calories: 235 | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 15g | Fat: 17g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 0.5g | Cholesterol: 72mg | Sodium: 256mg | Potassium: 259mg | Fiber: 0.4g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 174IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 56mg | Iron: 2mg
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Appetizer, Main Course
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Thank you for another great recipe. I used ground bison and pork sausage (didn’t have just ground pork). The pork sausage helped with the tendency for bison to get dry as it’s so lean. I added a pinch of red pepper flakes. Also, I used a melon ball scoop to form the meatballs. It is the perfect size for us. Plus, we think they are easier to eat in a meatball sub sandwich. The recipe yielded 54 meatballs and were fully cooked at 16 minutes.
Sounds delicious, Judy!
I have made these several times and they turn out great every time. I use breakfast sausage as the ground pork, have added mozzarella inside the balls occasionally. Love having meatball sandwiches the next day.
Super easy and delicious. Next time I will try and stuff the meatballs with more Parmigiana.
The best meatball recipe ever!!!
The best meatball recipe ever! The meatballs were soft, tender and flavorful. Goes well with store-bought marinara or any sauce. Makes a great sandwich with toasted baguette.
I followed the directions exactly up until forming the number of meatballs and instead made half – 24, so they were twice as large. I baked them at 400 degrees and instead of checking them at 18 minutes, realizing that they should cook longer, I checked them with my thermapen at 16 minutes, and was surprised to find they were already 168-172 degrees! My oven temp was at 400 and confirmed with an in-over thermometer, so I would strongly recommend that anyone reading this, and makes 48 meatballs, check the internal temp of the meatballs at 13 minutes, cuz if you don’t want overcooked meatballs, don’t wait to check them at 18 minutes.
Sorry these meatballs didn’t work out for you, Joe. Usually our readers love these meatballs!
delicious
I have not made these meatballs yet, but I was wondering if you should use 85%or 90% ground beef. And where do you find ground pork in the grocery store? And can you use Italian sausage instead of ground pork?
Hi Judith, we use an 80/20 ground beef mixture but that should work well in this recipe. You can often find ground pork in the meat section near the ground beef, but you can replace it with Italian sausage if you prefer.
VONS ALBERTSON’S HAVE GROUND PORK
Thank you for sharing Maria!
80 % works well. But 85% could work too…Not 90% in my opinion. If you cannot find ground pork in the beef section, try looking in the section that has pork. Pesonally, I like to use ITALIAN Sweet turkey sausage. 2 fat links, casings off. To peel off casings easier, I place the links in the freezer 1st for 20 min OR just semi defrost my frozen ones. Then run a THIN SHARP knife down the center of the links in a SHALLOW cut, and peel off the casing
the best homemade Meatballs I ever made!! this one is a keeper!! I made them a little bigger so I got about 30 that fit perfectly in my casserole dish. I kept them in a little longer because of their size, but they were perfect!
Outstanding!! I subbed ground turkey for the sausage and it was delicious! Easy, fast – a homerun recipe. We will be repeating this dish!
I made these today and they’re def easy and delicious. I followed the recipe exactly. I added 3/4 tsp salt less would be better, about 1/2 tsp I think. Will make again.
Love this recipe, the prep time always takes me longer but well worth it. I usually make extra and freeze some
So delicious, easy to make, and surprisingly quick to get from recipe to table! I didn’t have any ground pork of any kind in the fridge, so these were 80/20 beef meatballs which worked great and saved my “OMG! I don’t know what to make for dinner!” panic. Baked up quickly and served in a beef-based gravy over mashed potatoes. Nice change from just making meatloaf again. PERFECT! Next time I make these will be with ground pork and will make plenty to freeze. Thank you for the awesome recipes and saving dinner …. for the umpteenth time! :)
Yay! I am so happy to hear you loved this recipe Chey!
Very nice recipe chef . Thank you for your effort .
My husband and I made these last night. They were incredible! I’ve never been much of a meatball fan but these have changed my mind. The only thing we changed was sautéing the onions beforehand. Thanks for the recipe!
I am so happy to hear these were a hit Katherine!
Thank you for this recipe. I do make some adjustments due to food allergies and personal taste. I used turkey instead of beef and also used gluten free bread crumbs, swapped the milk with chicken broth, sautéed to onions, added 2 strips of raw bacon and omitted the cheese. The meatballs still yielded about 48. They were moist and delicious!
me like this yum meatball yum thank yum
I have made the meatballs twice, with only minor changes: fresh pressed garlic, i prefer a larger meatball (I got 23) +/- 1.4 oz
requiring an additional 5 or 6 minutes.
These are very moist and sweet, my new go to Italian. Thanks
Could this recipe be made into a meatloaf? If so, would you add another egg to the mixture? The meatballs are delish!
I have not tried this recipe as meatloaf so I can’t say for sure. For meatloaf we love this recipe!
Great recipe. Meatballs came out flavorful and moist. I made a few adjustments just based on my practices. I sauteed onions which bring out their sweetness (also, my husband is not a fan of onions). I also prepared a nice tomato sauce similar to vodka sauce. It is a repeat performance in my house.