There once was a relative who casually commented that she couldn’t believe that I didn’t have a recipe for homemade meatballs on my site. “I can’t have everything!” I told her. “Yeah, but meatballs???” she questioned. She’s right. It’s time for a good meatball recipe. Thank goodness the Pioneer Woman came along with her fab recipe to save my meatball-lacking site. Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) published a cookbook- The Pioneer Woman Cooks- Food From My Frontier. It’s bright and pretty and full of step by step photos, life on her ranch, and food that you want to eat. Besides the fact that I’m proud to call Ree my friend and you should support her because she’s lovely and fabulous and has cute dimples and a contagiously fun personality, her cookbook is truly one that you should have on your cookbook shelf. The Best Homemade Meatballs are the ultimate in comfort food! Toss them in marinara sauce and top a pile of freshly cooked noodles with them, or stuff them into a roll to create a meatball sub sandwich with melted mozzarella. We opted for Meatball Subs this time. SO good.
How to Make the Best Homemade Meatballs:
The best homemade meatballs are a simple combination of ground beef and pork, garlic, fresh parsley, eggs, Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, salt/pepper and a splash of milk. P.S. >Whole Foods and maybe other markets sell both ground beef and ground pork in bulk in their meat department… so you can just go in there and tell them you’d like exactly 3/4 pound of each.
Shape them into whatever size meatballs you’d like- tiny ones to go on pizza or regular-sized meatballs like these (you’ll get about 24). Then you pop them into the freezer for a few minutes, just to firm them up so they don’t fall apart when you cook them in a skillet.
The meatballs are quickly browned in a skillet before they’re added to marinara sauce to simmer and finish them off. You can use bottled marinara, or you can use my homemade marinara sauce recipe. Then you are free to use your meatballs however you’d like! I hope that relative who so delicately pointed out that I have no meatballs on my site is happy now. I really should thank her for her feedback… because these meatballs are very, very good!
We do love to enjoy these Best Homemade Meatballs in a sub roll- it’s the ultimate comfort food, and it works out well for an easy weeknight meal. They’re also really good served over zucchini noodles!
In this cookbook, The Pioneer Woman shares a recipe for Rigatoni and Meatballs (sauce and all). These are just the meatballs here. Save this recipe because you’ll want to make them over and over again! If you like this recipe, you might also enjoy my Beef Burrito Casserole or this Meatball Pizza for easy dinner ideas.
