Homemade Italian Meatballs Recipe

Serve Authentic Homemade Italian Meatballs for an easy dinner and leftovers on a bun for lunch. These homemade meatballs make a great freezer meal! These meatballs are perfect with our easy homemade spaghetti sauce.

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Homemade Italian Meatballs Recipe

So I’ve been keeping a secret. A very delicious secret. And it’s these Homemade Italian Meatballs.

Authentic Italian Meatballs

You know we share only the best of our family recipes and this one definitely ranks as one of the top. This is an old family recipe from my mom’s side of the family. Although we are not of Italian heritage in any way,  a distant relative married an Italian woman, who then let the family in on her authentic Italian meatball recipe.

Although I’m sure authentic Italian meatballs are made many different ways, we are so love with this version.

Of course I’d have to say what I love the most is the taste and texture of the meatballs. Tender and savory, just the way a meatball should be. But a close second is how versatile this recipe is. Let me take you through an example of how you can make this into an easy freezer meal, slow cooker dinner, and yes, even a school lunch for the kids!

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How to Make and Serve Homemade Meatballs

1. The first step is to make and bake the meatballs. Genius, I know. You can always count on me for the obvious.  😛 I know there are some days when you are so busy you can hardly breathe. But there are probably days, too, when you have a little bit of free time. Use that time to get ahead and make up a batch (or even a double batch!) of these meatballs.

2. There’s several options you can choose between next. First, you can freeze the meatballs for later. Split the meatballs up in whatever size Ziploc bags you’d like and pop them in the freezer to use at another time.  Another option is to use the meatballs right away.  You can add them to a pan full of sauce, let them simmer for about 20 minutes and then serve. Or you can put the meatballs in the slow cooker, cover them with sauce and let them simmer all day. Let me tell you that this is by far my most favorite way to eat these meatballs. That extra time in the slow cooker gives them a depth of flavor that will make you swoon.

3. Once the meatballs are cooked, you can serve them over spaghetti, use them in a soup, or make meatball sub sandwiches, which takes me back to my school days!

Meatball Splash Sandwich

One of my favorite school lunchroom lunches was “Meatball Splash” which was simply meatballs smothered in spaghetti sauce on a hot dog bun. Our lunch ladies served these often and I loved them!

Now I take this best meatball recipe and serve it on buns for our own homemade meatball sub sandwiches. And your child can enjoy these at school by simply putting the warm meatballs and sauce in a thermos. Send along spoon and a hot dog bun in a baggie and they can make their own sandwich at school. If your kids are like mine, they grow tired of peanut butter and jelly very quickly. They’d be super happy to have a home cooked comfort meal for their school day.

What You Need to Make This Recipe for Italian Meatballs

Italian Sausage: You can buy Italian sausage…or make your our favorite Italian sausage seasoning recipe.
Medium Cookie Scoop: To get all of your meatballs a uniform size, use a cookie scoop.
Large Baking Pan: This is my favorite pan for baking large amounts of meatballs….and cinnamon rolls. 🙂

5 from 3 votes

Print

Homemade Italian Meatballs

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

35 mins

Total Time

55 mins

 

Here's a recipe for classic, Homemade Italian Meatballs. Serve them for dinner topping a plate of spaghetti and send the leftovers with your kids for lunch to make a meatball sub sandwich.

Course: Main Dish

Cuisine: American

Servings: 10

Calories: 333 kcal

Ingredients

• 2 pounds lean ground beef
• 3/4 pound ground Italian sausage
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients together. 

2. Roll into 1 1/2" balls and place them closely together in 9x13 pans that have been sprayed with cooking spray. 

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked through.

4. Serve the meatballs immediately with sauce and spaghetti, put them in the slow cooker along with sauce to have them simmer, or freeze the meatballs in Ziploc bags to use another time.

Nutrition Facts

Homemade Italian Meatballs

Amount Per Serving

Calories 333 Calories from Fat 180

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 20g 31%

Saturated Fat 8g 40%

Cholesterol 163mg 54%

Sodium 811mg 34%

Potassium 458mg 13%

Total Carbohydrates 5g 2%

Protein 31g 62%

Vitamin A 4.1%

Vitamin C 1.5%

Calcium 15.9%

Iron 18.9%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.