Meatballs for Spaghetti Sauce [freezer]
"These are fantastic (and fantastically convenient) basic meatballs. I love the fact that I can get 4 batches of meatballs made all at once. When I cook them in spaghetti sauce, I normally serve half of them over pasta, and then use the other half to make meatball subs. I try to keep these in my freezer at all times.
(Cooking time is freezing time.)"
- Ready In:
- 12hrs 30mins
- Ingredients:
- 7
- Yields:
-
48 meatballs
- Serves:
- 16
ingredients
- 1 lb lean ground beef
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1 cup breadcrumbs
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 -2 teaspoon salt
- fresh ground black pepper
- 1⁄2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
directions
- MEATBALLS:.
- Mix together the beef and pork with your hands until well-integrated.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and mix to combine.
- Cover a sheet pan with wax paper. Form the mixture into 48 1-inch meatballs, placing them on the pan as you go, spacing them out so they're not touching each other.
- Cover the top of the meatballs with plastic wrap, and place the pan flat in the freezer.
- Freeze for at least 12 hours.
- At this point, transfer the frozen meatballs in batches of 12 to quart sized freezer bags.
- TO SERVE:.
- Defrost 1 bag of meatballs.
- Turn the oven on to 350 degrees.
- Pour a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce (or your favorite recipe) into a deep 4 quart baking dish and place it in the oven.
- Brown the meatballs on all sides in a skillet.
- Carefully submerge the meatballs in the hot sauce, and return the dish to the oven.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
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Reviews
-
The meatballs are good,a nice texture & they stay together very well. Nothing to write home about but good. I just browned the meatballs (12 of them) poured a 1 lb. 10oz. jar of Ragu over them in the skillet & let them simmer for 1/2 hr. That much sauce seems to cover 1/2 of a one pound box of cooked spaghetti. At my house the recipe served three of us. Four meatballs each & a generous amount of Spag. & sauce.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
I'm a programmer by day, bread baker by night. To make a living, I do process automation for management at an inbound call center. (It's really not as exciting as it sounds.) Actually, I enjoy my job. There are worse things I could be doing to finance my cooking / baking habits.
I never really knew how to cook growing up. Some of you in the Breads and Baking forum have heard my disastrous story about making Nestle Toll House cookies...
When I went to college and moved out of the dorms, I started to become interested in actually learning how to cook. I had a lactose intolerant boyfriend, and a limited budget, so it made sense to stop eating take-out pizza and Taco Bell every day. I have to credit The Dairy Free Cookbook by Jane Zukin as my first real guide. (I still cook out of it , even though the boyfriend is long gone!)
With that as a start, I set about systematically teaching myself how to cook.
Five years later, I'm getting a reputation from friends and family as being a good cook. I love baking bread from scratch (I could really become a sourdough freak - thanks Donna!) - I can't seem to make enough cinnamon raisin swirl to keep my mom and grandmother happy. I'm enjoying getting back to eating seasonally, eschewing over - processed prepared food in favor of simpler, healthier, better tasting, cheaper meals I make myself. When I set out to learn, I never imagined I'd be making stock, roasting whole chickens, baking bread, or shopping at our local farmer's market. Now I can't imagine going back to the way I used to eat.
I hope someday to learn enough about bread baking to open a local bakery/cafe, somewhere in Westport or Downtown Kansas City. I love my city, and the kind of place I have in mind will be a place that gives back to the community. I want to leave this city a better place for my having been here.
Here's my standard metric for how I review recipes here, because I want my reviews to be helpful and consistent:
***** Fantastic as is. Wouldn't change a thing and will make it often.
0**** Fantastic tweaked a little to suit my tastes. Will make it often.
00*** Had to tweak it alot to get something I would make again.
000** Not very good. May try tweaking it again at some point.
0000* Not good. Probably won't try making again, even with tweaks.
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