Recipe: Meatballs

Before we begin, I need to confess something.

I hate homemade red sauce.

There. I said it.

I will make pretty much anything from scratch, and prefer it over the storebought variety, but in this instance, for some odd reason, I can only handle Prego Traditional. And so now you know.

Moving on.

You'll need:
ground beef (or turkey or chicken)
red sauce
lightly scrambled egg (1 per pound of meat)
1/2 chopped onion (per pound of meat)
minced garlic (1-2 cloved per pound of meat... do you see where this is going?)
basil, oregano, parsley (fresh or dried)
salt & pepper
italian breadcrumbs
grated parmesan cheese
olive oil



Saute the onions and garlic in some olive oil until nice and glassy. Season with some salt and pepper to taste.



Finely chop your fresh herbs, if you're using them.



Add the onions and garlic to the ground meat and mix together. I'm not going to lie. It's easiest to just use your hands. Add in the eggs and combine thoroughly.



Toss in some breadcrumbs, the cheese, the herbs, pepper and salt. How much? Um... you'll know. Start small (I would say about 1/3 cup of each breadcrumbs and cheese per pound). What you want is for the mixture to be able to hold a ball shape, so not too wet and not too dry. You can always add more to get to that stage, but once you add to much, you're stuck with dry meatballs.



Now that we're all mixed up, let's coat the bottom of a pan with your red sauce. I use the disposable aluminum ones for easier cleanup.

Using your hands or a little cookie scoop, form 1-1.5" meatballs and place them into the pan, in neat little rows.



Keep going til you fill the whole pan. Add a drizzle of sauce over the top, sprinkle with parmesan cheese.



Cover the pan with foil and bake at 375* for 45-60 minutes. Sprinkle with some more parmesan cheese before serving.