Homemade Meatballs

I am a huge fan of all foods Italianate! I love meatballs – in pasta, in a sub, as an appetizer. So I decided to try homemade meatballs recently.

I was terribly nervous because everyone says that meatballs are so similar to meatloaf – and, confession: I’ve never made a good meatloaf. They always fall apart. And yes – you’re probably itching to comment that I should use more egg, or more this or more that. Y’all, I have tried SO MANY recipes. I can’t make one that stays together and tastes just right. Not even my momma’s recipe.

But – all that is about to change. I’m going to brave a meatloaf one day soon because these meatballs turned out SO YUMMY. And if a meatloaf is supposed to be anything like meatballs, then I should at least be able to come up with something half decent. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Anyway, back to the meatballs! I decided to try them out for the first time. Here are the ingredients I used.

• 2 pounds of ground Italian sausage (thawed, not frozen)
• 2 large eggs
• ¼ cup milk
• 2 cups of Italian breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning
• 2 teaspoons of chopped onion flakes
• 2 teaspoons of garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
• 1 can of Hunts traditional tomato sauce

Preheat your oven to 400F.

Set aside the thawed sausage. First, mix your wet ingredients in one bowl and your dry in another. Put your sausage in a really large mixing bowl, breaking it up as you go. Then, slowly pour the wet ingredients on top of the meat, followed by the dry ingredients. Using your (very well-washed) hands, knead the meat, working in the mixture of other ingredients. At the conclusion, you should not see large clumps of any of the seasonings or breadcrumbs – everything should be fairly well dispersed.

Roll into balls, approximately ping-pong sized. Spray a baking sheet lightly, then put in your preheated oven. Cook at 400F for 40 minutes.

Towards the end of your 40 minutes, heat your sauce on the stovetop in a pot. I found that although I usually season my sauce myself, my meatballs had enough flavor that leaving the sauce as-is worked perfectly.

When the meatballs are done, spoon them into the sauce and stir.

Serve on wheat hoagie buns, on pasta, or as an appetizer! Enjoy!

The red pepper flakes do give the meatballs a bit of heat, so if you’re not a fan of slightly spicy foods, I would recommend cutting that down some.

If you serve these with pasta, I would recommend additional sauce.

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