My Secrets for the Best Oven Baked Italian Meatballs

hi there today we are making my go-to oven-baked meatballs these meatballs are super tender and flavorful i've made hundreds maybe even thousands of these over the years so i've got a few tricks up my sleeve to help you make them perfectly i'm christina from it is a keeper and i share tried and true recipes that anyone can make like these oven baked meatballs i'm going to show you how to make them perfectly every single time okay so let's jump in and get started okay so the first thing we need to do to make our oven baked meatballs is to make a panad and that's basically just a mixture of breadcrumbs and milk we want to hydrate these bread crumbs so i just have um some just some seasoned bread crumbs here didn't make them from home store-bought and i pour my milk in there and i'm just going to use my fingers this recipe uses your hands so don't be afraid get in there i'm just mixing it up to try to hydrate as much of the bread crumb as possible to our mixing bowl we are going to add our meat and here i have a blend of beef veal and pork and i like to use that mixture because i feel like it gives the perfect texture for the meatballs so if you can't find beef veal and pork sometimes you can find them together in a package the butcher will package them together but if you can't find all three components you can just use beef and veal you could just use beef and pork you could just use beef it's up to you whatever you find but i like the mixture of all three so whenever i can get all three i use them so first trick in these meatballs is we're going to grate the onion that goes in and here's why i like when the onion i love the flavor of onion but i like when it just kind of melts into the meatball i don't want to bite into my meatball and have a big piece of onion coming back at me so unless you can mince them really really fine i prefer the grating method so here i just have the large grater over my bowl and i'm just going to run the onion right over top of it and it just kind of melts in there now as always when you get to the bottom watch your fingers because flesh is not part of the ingredient list nor is fingernail so i actually like to stop before i get right to the very bottom just so we don't end up with that situation here's another little piece i'm just going to run that over perfect now another easier way to do this and if i'm making a big batch i'll actually do it this way is i can run it through my food processor and get the same texture without grating it so that's another option for you okay so we have our grated onion in here next we're going to add some minced garlic so again i like to use my garlic press for this because it gets a nice fine mince and guys i love this garlic press this is my my favorite one because a it goes in the dishwasher not all of them do and b i'll show you in a sec why i love it so there's one clove when you open it up this just pops out you don't have to go fishing for that garlic peel it just comes right out that's why i love this one i'll put links to both this and the grader in the show notes so you can grab them there okay perfect now i'm making a half batch of these today because again i have a small family so um a half batch does us just fine for one meal but most times i make double or triple batch because if i'm making the mess i might as well make a whole bunch of meatballs and freeze them okay so we have onion and garlic in here i'm gonna add an egg and then to this i'm going to add some grated parmesan cheese i like to use the fresh grated and then a little bit of worcestershire sauce that just really brings up that umami flavor and then last but not least we're going to add some seasonings here so here i have my all-purpose seasoning i have some italian seasoning and you can get this recipe on my website i'll provide a link for it in the show notes this is my homemade italian seasoning and some crushed red peppers to just give it a little bit of zing so all three go in and then we're gonna bring back our bread crumbs that have been hydrating while we were getting everything else together so i'm gonna go ahead and put those in there and then i'm just getting in with my hands and we're gonna mix this until it all comes together nicely i like to use my hands for this over a mixture because this way i know i'm not going to over mix the meat if you over mix it it will get tough and nobody wants a tough meatball we want nice tender pillowy meatballs so i'm just using my fingers i'm not trying to be too rough with it and i'm kind of breaking up the bread crumb mixture as i go i can feel that with my fingers that's the other part good part about using your hands in this recipe is you can feel the texture and you know when you're where you need to be so like i said i'm kind of breaking up that bread mixture as i go because nobody wants to bite into a chunk of breading either okay this is looking good okay i'm going to clean up my hands and bring out my baking sheet so here i have a foil-lined baking sheet this is how i like to do them and i have the non-stick foil if you don't have non-stick foil just give a non-stick coating of non-stick spray to regular foil and you're fine and then i like to use my trusty cookie scoop for this so it's really like an all-purpose scoop my meatball scoop a cookie scoop because that way i'm sure i'm going to get the same size meatballs every time so i just scoop [Music] and roll and we'll just repeat this process until our mixture is all used up and you don't have to worry about spreading these out too far on the sheet because meatballs don't spread so you can keep them nice and close you don't want to pack them in too tight because then they'll steam but you do want to give a little bit of space around them and again we don't want to overly handle them because we don't want that meat to to toughen up so halfway through my meatball rolling process i decided i needed a larger tray so i switched it out guys you know me i always have the wrong size bowl i always have the wrong size baking sheet so these meatballs we're doing in the oven but you can also do them in an air fryer you can do them in a frying pan um you can par cook this is how i like to do it i like to par cook them in the oven just to get a little bit of crispiness on them and then if i'm making sauce i just dropped them right in there and let them cook the rest of the way in the sauce i find that that gives a really tender meatball so it's up to you very flexible that's the great thing about meatballs and this is a good all-purpose recipe you can enjoy them plain as they are or you can add them to other things to other recipes so like i said i always make a ton of them and then keep them in the freezer they're great for sandwiches spaghetti whatever you're having that requires a meatball or just eat them like they are no judgment here guys okay so our meatballs are all rolled we're going to pop these in the oven bake them and when they're done you'll see how beautiful they turn out okay so these just came out of the oven they are still a little hot i let them cool for a little bit but i'm gonna go in for a bite but you see how they just cooked up beautifully they have a nice little crust on them hot hot but they are perfectly tender inside [Music] oh yeah sunday shopper i want garlic bread these are the perfect oven baked meatballs i'm gonna keep eating these meatballs are definitely a keeper and if you want a great side for these meatballs make sure you check out my caesar salad recipe thanks for joining me today you can get the full printable recipe in the video description below i'll see you next time bye

Channel: It Is a Keeper Recipes

Views: 80,226

Keywords: recipe, cooking

Id: FZLZ7QT681o

Length: 8min 18sec (498 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022