Lydia's Meatballs
The Classic Italian Meatball made with our wonderful freshly ground beef!- Prep Time 30 minutes
- Cook Time 37 minutes
Ingredients
- 2 lb freshly ground beef
- 1 small carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1 med onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- ½c flat (Italian) parsley
- 2 T olive oil
- 2 cups cool water (divided)
- 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs (use sliced white bread, some ends of Italian bread, or even one plain English muffin)
- 2 med eggs
- 1 cup grated Parmigiana
- 4 T kosher salt
- 4 T fresh ground black pepper
Directions
- Heat oven to 375
- Cover a rimmed cookie sheet with foil, spray lightly with non-stick spray or olive oil
- Place the ground meat into a bowl
- Process the carrot, onion, garlic, parsley: pulse until finely chopped
- Heat olive oil until shimmering and empty the processor bowl into the pan, don’t rinse the processor yet
- Add 2T salt and 2T pepper; saute vegetables on medium, stirring often
- Let veggies soften and lightly color, then add 1 cup cool water and scrape up any stuck veggies; cook 3 minutes more
- Remove from heat and let cool (so they don’t cook the ground beef when you mix everything up in the bowl)
- Into your processor: breadcrumbs, 1 cup water, eggs, parmigiana, process until smooth
- Pour over the ground meat
- Add 2T Kosher salt and 2T ground pepper
- Add the sautéed veggies to the bowl and mix everything up gently; breaking up the pieces of meat, moving your hands around the edges of the bowl to lift and mix until well blended.
- Form 2” meatballs, keep your hands moist to make it roll smoothly. You should get around 20 meatballs
- Roast meatballs for 25 minutes, temperature should be 165 degrees, if not, roast a few more minutes
- If you want, broil for 5 minutes to brown them a bit
- Put into your tomato sauce, or serve with ricotta on Italian bread
- Store leftover meatballs in the refrigerator, or freeze them; heat up to 165