Crack the Code: Figuring Out the Perfect Egg to Meat Ratio for Juicy Meatballs

Making great meatballs is all about memorizing a basic ratio that you can adjust to suit your taste. Begin by putting together a pound of ground meat. Any kind will do, even fish if you’d like. Add ½ cup bread crumbs for lightness, a teaspoon of salt, and an egg to bind it together. That’s all you need. To taste, you can add pepper and other spices, chopped herbs, and minced alliums like garlic, onion, scallions, or shallot. Then broil or fry as you like.

Melissa Clark has been writing about food for more than 25 years. She comes up with new ways to make old recipes by trying at least six different methods. Then, a professional recipe tester makes her recipe at least three times, and sometimes more than twelve times, to make sure that all home cooks can make it perfectly. Melissa changed the amounts of seasonings and breadcrumbs in these meatballs to make sure the recipe would work with any ground meat.

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I have adapted the Alton Brown way of baking them. Roll in fine bread crumbs, place in greased muffin tin. Forms a nice crust keeping plump and moist.

Soak the panko (or other) breadcrumbs in milk so they don’t dry out the meatballs. This will give them more depth and help them stick together.

Ok here are some secrets to great meatballs. One, add 1 tablespoon of ricotta cheese per pound of meat. Two, mix ground veal, pork, and beef. And lastly, do not bake, fry, sauté or broil. Roll up the meatballs and allow to cook in a simmering sauce. I promise these are the best meatballs you’ve ever eaten. They will melt in your mouth. The author is correct on ratio. One egg and half cup breadcrumbs per pound of meat. and 1/4 cups grated Romano. Enjoy!.

I bake my meatballs, using a rack to keep them from getting greasy from melted fat. They brown all over, especially if you use a relatively high temperature–400 degrees or so. Cook your vegies before adding them to the meat mix, unless you like them crunchy. My favorite is a mix of onions and fennel. Timing depends on how big you like your meatballs and how hot your oven is.

Baked at 425° about 10 minutes.

When I use ground turkey or chicken breast, I add olive oil to bump up the fat content with a better fat. The extra fat helps captures the flavor of the spices. The other option with poultry is to use thighs that have a higher fat content to begin with.

Rather than rolling the meat into balls, I pat it into a rectangle and then cut it into squares of the same size. Then roll into balls. You could also use a small ice cream scoop, but you’d have to wash it, which is very hard to do because it has so many moving parts.

For Gluten Free: Polenta/Chickpea Flour or a combination; works very well. To add a Thai twist, chop up fresh Thai or Italian basil, cilantro, chilies, fish sauce, and a little brown sugar. It tastes great! I put them in a red curry with coconut milk and serve it with steamed brown basmati rice or wasabi mashed potatoes.

Americas Test Kitchen uses potato flakes in place of bread crumbs and it works well.

I used oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs.

I have been making meatballs in the oven for decades, just like this recipe says. I would never go back to frying them. Baking them at 375° on convection is FAR superior to broiling them. If you have a convection feature, definitely use it for baking/browning meatballs. Broiling meatballs can go wrong in a couple of minutes if youre not careful. It can also result in a charred exterior combined with a semi-raw interior. Convection baking is easy and foolproof.

With the black pepper, garlic, and parsley options, I make them the same way I have for years, but I add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of finely grated Pecorino Romano and can’t remember the last time I didn’t double the recipe. the best.

Baked at 425ºF for ~10 minutes.

Uncooked and then frozen, they will stick to each other and get misshapen. Once they are cooked and frozen, they will keep their shape and be easier to separate from each other. Plus, they will be so simple to make on a weeknight. Not as often as I used to, so I heat them in a pan with just enough water to steam them a bit.

I use panko in my turkey meatballs; it is lighter in texture than regular crumbs. It’s not very tasty when turkey is used alone, so I add some chipotle ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and minced onion to make it taste better.

Make these all the time now with different variations of herbs and spices. Current favourite is 1/2 beef, 1/2 pork, with fish sauce, ginger, garlic, cilantro, birds eye pepper, cilantro, lemongrass. Serve with a simple red curry with bell peppers, mushrooms and baby corn, over rice. Killer.

And 1 small yellow onion diced. Uncooked for nice crunchy texture

Bake 425 convection 7 minutes and turn for 5-7 minutes

Adding a little milk to the crumbs made them more moist, as Peter suggested 6 years ago.

I made these with Impossible plant-based meat and Just Egg. For Impossible, I think broiling works better than baking. They were delicious, and my guests didn’t know they were plant-based until I told them. No slaughterhouse, no cholesterol, and a fraction of GHG emissions compared with cow or other mammal meat; awesome.

1/2 cup ground turkey, 1/2 cup ground oats, 1/3 cup Parmesan Kraft, and 1/2 cup spices. Good! Very tender, but maybe a little less turkey and oats.

Really easy, fast and delicious. Panko and milk are very important! I turn the meatballs and baking sheet around halfway through cooking time to make the browning and distribution more even. I learned it’s better to slightly undercook than to overcook. You can always cook more (and this can be done again if you want to), but once it’s overcooked, it’s too late. well, smother it in a yummy sauce. Great recipe, ENJOY!.

Used two onions and gf bread crumbs, baked in oven and turned out great!

I made it with half beef and half pork. They were great.

Cooked on 1/20/24. I’m late to this party. The ricotta was dated, so I subbed milk. The balls were roasted in the convection oven . Addd cumin, garam masala, garlic, s and p, scallion. It tasted like the Kona from home.

Could you sub tofu?

I sub impossible burger for my vegetarian wife- works perfectly! I wouldnt try tofu, not a similar texture

These were so delicious. I made beef meatballs and used cumin and fresh basil. I used flaked oats instead of breadcrumbs because I follow a gluten-free diet. You can see them below. They turned out great!.

Advice to drop raw meatballs into a sauce you’re making will only work if that’s the only thing the meatballs are being used for. When I make meatballs I make a lot and freeze them for future meals. That means baking them (some people fry them, but that’s too much work and fat), putting them on a baking sheet, freezing them, and then putting them in bags to store them for longer. Why make these little balls just to throw them into a sauce that’s meant for one or two meals?

Cook at 400 for about 15 minutes. Using rack. Use 1/4 cup parm. Make two pasta dishes to accompany: 1. vodka sauce with big macaroni we already have 2. marinara rigatoni with cheese and spinach.

Seared in a pan on medium heat until crispy. Flipped and seared the other side. Then finished in the oven at 375 for several minutes until cooked through. Private notes are only visible to you.

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Adding Eggs to Homemade Meatballs

How many meatballs in a pound of beef?

With this big batch beef meatball recipe, I usually get about 125 1-inch meatballs. ( Yes, I counted them! And not just once.) A pound of ground beef will make roughly 30 medium-size (1-inch) meatballs. How many meatballs per person? Since these meatballs are smaller size (1-inch balls), I serve 7-8 meatballs per person.

How many eggs should one eat to gain muscle from protein?

A serving of two large eggs contains 13 grams of high-quality protein. They are an effective food for maintaining, building and repairing muscle. But, as the yolk contains fat and the white only protein, the recommendation is to consume 1 whole egg with 3 white after your workout regime.

How many meatballs will a recipe yield?

The number of meatballs a recipe will yield varies according to the size of the balls you shape and the amount of meat, egg, breadcrumbs, liquid, and other ingredients. This quick and simple meatball calculator allows you to approximate how many meatballs a recipe will make and compare the yield of different recipes.

How many meatballs can you make with raw meat?

You can make between 25 and 30 one-inch meatballs for every cup of raw meat.