My favorite baked meatball recipe — it’s easy to make, full of great flavor, and incredibly versatile. Serve it with Italian marinara sauce, Swedish cream sauce, American bbq sauce and beyond!
Friends, do you have a go-to recipe for amazing homemade meatballs in your repertoire?
If not, bookmark this one. Like, seriously. ♡
After having made who knows how many millions of meatballs in my life, I’ve officially landed on this easy meatball recipe as my forever favorite. And I love it for so many reasons.
Mainly, I’m partial to this particular meatball recipe because it is BIG on flavor. I’ve always considered it such a missed opportunity when I’m served meatballs that are bland and boring because, quite frankly, it’s so easy to make them delicious! We shouldn’t have to rely on a sauce to make meatballs interesting. So this recipe goes big on all of my favorite flavors, including a base mix of ground beef and pork (win-win), classic garlic and onion (grated to avoid chunks), lots of Parmesan (adds amazing flavor), and a generous helping of zesty herbs and seasonings.
I also love these homemade meatballs because they are baked instead of fried, which makes them a touch healthier and also considerably easier to cook. They can easily be made gluten-free if you would like. They freeze beautifully for later, if you would like. And while I often love to just eat these meatballs on their own, the flavors here are versatile enough to pair with any of your favorite sauces, from Italian marinara sauce, to American bbq sauce, to a Swedish cream sauce, to a spicy Thai curry and so much more.
Basically, this is the meatball recipe that I use for pretty much everything and it is always, always a winner. So be sure to bookmark this one, and let’s make a batch together!
The BEST Meatball Recipe | 1-Minute Video
Homemade Meatballs Ingredients:
Alright let’s talk about the ingredients you will need make this easy baked meatball recipe. (Full amounts included in the recipe below!)
- Panko breadcrumbs: I’ve found that Panko breadcrumbs work best in baked meatballs, but you are welcome to use any type of breadcrumbs (seasoned or not) that you have on hand.
- Milk: We will mix a bit of milk with the breadcrumbs to form a panade, which will help to keep our meatballs nice and moist.
- Ground beef and pork: I like to use a 50/50 mix of the two to make meatballs, but you can also make all-beef or all-pork meatballs if you prefer.
- Fresh garlic: Minced or pressed.
- Eggs: Which will help to bind all of our meatball ingredients together.
- Parmesan: As always, I highly recommend using freshly-grated Parmesan (instead of the pre-grated stuff) for maximum flavor and freshness. And if you have a kitchen scale, I recommend weighing the Parmesan to be sure that you have the correct amount — 1.5 ounces.
- Fresh Italian herbs: I always love the taste and extra color that fresh herbs add to a batch of meatballs. So I used a mixture of basil and parsley here. But if you don’t have fresh herbs on hand, no worries, just read my substitution options below.
- Grated yellow onion: Yes, grated. Even as someone who really loves onions, I always get a little weirded out by diced onion chunks in my meatballs. So I recommend using a box grater (or the grating attachment on a food processor) to grate the onion into smaller pieces before adding it to the mix.
- Worcestershire sauce: Adds such great flavor!
- Dry seasonings: A simple mix of dried oregano, sea salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes.
How To Make Meatballs:
To make these homemade meatballs, simply…
- Make the panade. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the Panko and milk until combined. Set mixture aside to soak for 5 to 10 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients. Then use a fork to briefly mash the mixture into a paste.
- Combine remaining ingredients. Add the ground beef, ground pork, garlic, eggs, Parmesan, fresh herbs, onion and Worcestershire sauce to the (same) mixing bowl. Sprinkle the oregano, salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes evenly on top. Use your hands to mix the ingredients until evenly combined, being careful not to over-mix the ingredients.
- Chill (optional step). To make the meatballs easier to form, I recommend covering and chilling the mixture in the refrigerator for 1 hour. But if you’re pressed for time, you can skip this step.
- Prep oven and baking sheet. Heat the oven to 425°F and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Form the meatballs. Using a medium cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop and roll the mixture into 2-tablespoon balls and place them on the prepared baking sheet. (I recommend greasing your hands with a bit of olive oil to prevent the mixture from sticking.)
- Bake. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer measures the internal temperature of the meatballs to be 160°F. Remove pan and transfer to a wire cooling rack.
- Serve. Serve meatballs immediately and enjoy!
Possible Meatball Recipe Variations:
There are countless ways that you could customize this homemade meatball recipe, so please don’t hesitate to experiment and get creative! For example, feel free to…
- Use ground turkey or chicken: For a lighter option, feel free to use ground turkey/chicken to make turkey meatballs or chicken meatballs. Just note that they will need to be cooked to 165°F instead of 160°F, and will be a bit less moist than the beef and/or pork meatballs.
- Use all dried herbs: If you don’t have access to fresh basil and parsley, I recommend adding in an extra 1 tablespoon of dried Italian seasoning instead.
- Make them gluten-free: Just use gluten-free Panko (or other gluten-free breadcrumbs), and double-check to be sure that the brand of Worcestershire that you are using is also gluten-free. (French’s, Heinz and Lea and Perrins’ Original are all gluten-free in the United States.)
- Make them spicier. Feel free to double or triple the amount of crushed red pepper flakes used to give the meatballs more of a kick.
- Make them more garlicky. Also feel free to double the amount of garlic if you like extra-garlicky meatballs.
Ways To Serve Meatballs:
This baked meatballs recipe is incredibly versatile and can be served a number of ways! You could use it to make…
- Spaghetti and meatballs: Pair the meatballs with a 1-pound package of spaghetti (cooked until al dente) and a batch of my favorite marinara sauce recipe to make Italian meatballs.
- Swedish meatballs: Pair with your favorite Swedish cream sauce recipe to make Swedish meatballs.
- Alfredo meatballs: Pair with a batch of my favorite Alfredo sauce recipe to make Alfredo meatballs.
- BBQ meatballs: Pair with a batch of my favorite homemade BBQ sauce recipe to make BBQ meatballs.
- Grape jelly meatballs: Pair with a grape jelly sauce (just simmer together 1.5 cups ketchup and 1 cup grape jelly) to make retro grape jelly meatballs.
Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 pound ground pork
- 4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (1 1/2 ounces) finely-grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup finely-chopped fresh Italian herbs (I used half parsley, half basil)
- 1/4 cup grated yellow onion
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Make the panade. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the panko and milk until combined. Set mixture aside to soak for 5 to 10 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
- Combine remaining ingredients. Add the ground beef, ground pork, garlic, eggs, Parmesan, fresh herbs, onion and Worcestershire sauce to the (same) mixing bowl with the panade. Sprinkle the oregano, salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes evenly on top. Use your hands to mix the ingredients until evenly combined, being careful not to over-mix the ingredients.
- Chill (optional step). To make the meatballs easier to form, I recommend covering and chilling the mixture in the refrigerator for 1 hour. But if you're pressed for time, you can skip this step.
- Prep oven and baking sheet. Heat the oven to 425°F and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Form the meatballs. Using a medium cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop and roll the mixture into 2-tablespoon balls and place them on the prepared baking sheet. (I recommend greasing your hands with a bit of olive oil to prevent the mixture from sticking.)
- Bake. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer measures the internal temperature of the meatballs to be 160°F. Remove pan and transfer to a wire cooling rack.
- Serve. Serve meatballs immediately and enjoy!
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
Great recipe, as they were cooling my friend and her husband walked in and he instantly grabbed one and threw it in his mouth. He loved it, best part is he owns a local Italian fine dining restaurant. My new go to meatball recipe.
Thank you so much
My son has an egg allergy. Do you have any suggestions for an egg substitute? I’ve use aquafaba or flax eggs in baked goods but I’m not sure how it would work in this recipe.
I made this recipe exactly as written. I only made the balls about 1/3 the size. These are delicious! Thank you so much for the recipe!
These meatballs are amazing! My only issue is I probably should have used ground chuck because the ground beef was suuuper greasey. Other than that, I love them!
Meatballs were awesome!!! I didn’t have Worcestershire sauce so I added a tsp of balsamic vinegar! Worked great. Love that I can bake them. Will definitely be making these again !
Thanks for the great recipe! I just made these for the fourth time maybe and they are so good! I also add a little extra garlic and crushed red pepper like some people mentioned, but you don’t need to. We have been smoking them in the kamado joe and they turn out great. We usually make meatball subs with them.
Loved this recipe! Fantastic! I give this 5 Stars! We ate meatballs all week and I can’t wait to make them again. Really happy to have this meatball recipe.
mm :-)
Made this today. The meatballs are terrific. However, I didn’t follow the recipe entirely. I added a few ingredients and the ingredients really seemed to bring out some flavors that I was looking for in a meatball. The big ingredients, panko, meat and eggs were as called for, but I put in a bit less salt, didn’t add red pepper flakes, but did add some smoked Hungarian paprika and fennel pollen. I put in only enough paprika to give the mix a little smokiness and fennel pollen to give it a bit of a fennel taste. Not much variation, but I hardly ever follow a recipe completely. Sorry to those who write them, but I’m an artist and a musician and to me recipes are like jazz…they need a little improvisation. It’s just my way.
I do like what Ali said about the recipe. But she’s a musician as well. Except that if she was busy all day, she wasn’t a jazz player. ;-)
A few weeks back, I found your site (not so different in content from my own, with much prettier food photos) when googling a tamale recipe. Yours did not disappoint – even my picky eater loved them! I reblogged it with my own take on the filling, but linked back to you for the masa and technique.
This week my kid asked for meatballs. When the google algorithm included yours at the top of my search, I felt I needed to look no further. Holy cow, were these amazeballs (see what I did there?) and they passed my picky eater’s test with flying colors! I only wish they were a bit leaner (for my conscience). Have you ever made them with ground turkey, chicken, or bison?