Confession: I never made meatballs for dinner until a couple weeks ago. Maybe it's because I'm gluten-free, or because I just never thought of them, or because I was traumatized by some sorry, stiff meatballs I ate in my past—I don't really know.
Whatever the reason, I'm now a convert. Because once I realized how much fun it is to make meatballs however I want, I fell hard for them. Today my freezer is stocked with a few different kinds of uncooked meatballs that I can pull out as needed to make dinner for myself—or a group of six.
You don't need a recipe to know how to make meatballs. In fact, they're more fun without. All you need is to memorize this ratio:
1 pound of ground meat + 1 handful breadcrumbs + 1 handful chopped alliums + 1 egg
Got that? Amazing. Here's how to make meatballs perfectly—without a recipe.
Bite-sized chicken and bacon baked meatballs tossed in barbecue sauce.Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Alex Brannian, Food Styling by Anna Stockwell
1. Put 1 pound ground meat in a bowl
Meatballs can be made with ground beef, pork, veal, lamb, chicken, or turkey. You can mix two or three together for your own personal blend, or stick with just one meat. A bit of finely chopped bacon or pancetta can also be added to any of these for richer, smokier meatballs. And any raw sausage (removed from its casing) counts as ground meat, too.
A pound of meat is enough to make meatballs for 4. But while my meatball ratio scales up to serve more people, I don't recommend scaling down. Instead, make the full 1 pound batch of meatballs and freeze whatever you don't want to eat. (Freeze the meatballs raw.)
2. Add 1 handful breadcrumbs
For every pound of meat, you want to add about one handful (or about 1/4 cup) of breadcrumbs, which also help hold everything together. I like to use fresh breadcrumbs made by blitzing a piece of stale bread in the food processor—they're softer and mushier and more absorbent that way. (You can use any kind of bread for this, including gluten-free bread.) If you don't want to make your own breadcrumbs, go for panko rather than traditional dried breadcrumbs; panko has better texture.
3. Add 1 handful chopped alliums (onions, shallots, etc)
For both flavor and textural variety, you want to add the same amount of finely chopped alliums (onions, shallot, and/or garlic) as breadcrumbs: one handful (or 1/4 cup) per pound of meat you use. If you can't stand alliums (or maybe you're allergic?) you can totally skip them, or add less. But don't add more—too much will compromise the structure of your meatballs.
4. Season!
No need to mix the ground meat, breadcrumbs, and alliums together yet. Just get all of it into the same bowl and start seasoning. Begin with a good sprinkle of salt. From there, it's up to you. I like a lot of fresh herbs (try lamb meatballs loaded with chopped mint, dill, parsley, cumin and red pepper flakes). For classic Italian flavoring, add a generous dose of grated parm, some oregano (dried or fresh) and some parsley and freshly ground black pepper. Add a dollop of tomato paste if that's your thing. Or consider curry, paprika, miso, ginger or chipotle. Play, but don't go crazy: it's better to add too little than too much. How do you know how it'll taste? We'll get to that in a second, but first...
