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These easy homemade meatballs are full of flavor, cook up perfectly AND you can batch cook & freeze them! They are PERFECT in every way! Check out all of my meatballs recipes if you are looking for sauce ideas.
I love meatballs because they are a filling appetizer or side dish with any meal. I don’t like meatballs because they can be finicky. Thus, I have always been on the lookout for THE BEST easy meatballs recipe. So if you have a stand mixer and are like me (or if you love meatballs) this is so easy to throw it all in a bowl and set it to mix! Ta-da! The BEST easy homemade meatballs recipe…because you don’t have to mix it with your hands, all you have to do is roll them after it’s mixed!
Ingredients in Homemade Meatballs
- Ground beef – lean is the best one to use for meatballs as they won’t shrink in size too much
- Eggs – use large sized
- Saltine crackers – you can use low sodium ones if you want to cut salt
- Parmesan – you can use fresh or the cheap powdered stuff
- Parsley – good for flavor and for color
- Garlic cloves – fresh garlic is really good in these meatballs
- Oregano – for that classic Italian flavor
- Salt and pepper
How to Make Homemade Meatballs
- Put all ingredients in large bowl. Mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.
- Preheat a large skillet.
- Take a small amount, about the size of a ping pong ball and roll into a ball and put into the pan. Roll the remaining into meatballs and place in pan.
- Cook until they are well browned on all sides about 15 minutes. Once cooked make sure they have no pink remaining and are cooked through to a temperature of 165 °F.
- Use in your current recipe or freeze them for later.
Can I double this recipe?
If you want to meal prep, I would double this recipe and make a good 6 dozen for your freezer! You can even triple it if you want!
How to Freeze Meatballs
I usually freeze these meatballs for when I need a quick supper. They are so easy to freeze on a cookie sheet and then throw in a large Ziploc bag for later. I’ll pick my favourite sauce and throw these in to simmer!
- Place the formed meatballs onto a baking sheet and flash freeze them. This can take a couple of hours. You have to make sure they are frozen well so that they don’t stick together!
- When the meatballs are completely frozen, transfer them to a large sealing freezer bag and keep frozen for 3-4 months.
How To Cook The Meatballs From Frozen
There is nothing like a make-ahead meatball recipe to save you precious time during the week. This recipe makes about 36 small meatballs, which means that not only is this recipe an easy homemade meatball recipe, it’s a recipe that will feed your family 2 or three times from your freezer! I say two or three times because if you made 36, you also just made lunches for the next day. BOOM. Easy meatballs recipe…for lunches..for the win.
- To cook them from frozen, simply use them in your recipe as it calls for. Since you already cooked the meatballs they are ready to go! Heat them in the spaghetti sauce or re-heat them in a 350 °F oven until they reach 165 inside.
- Make sure that the meatballs are heated and cooked to 165 °F for safety.
Now, you will notice that I don’t have any sauces in this recipe and that’s because I just want you to have this easy homemade meatballs recipe as your base recipe. This is THE ONE. I do have a lot of saucy meatball recipes, check the following out!
More Delicious Meatball Recipes
- Try my Sweet & Sour Meatballs – this truly is the BEST recipe out there! Just use this recipe for meatballs and you are set!
- These Crock Pot Meatballs with Mushroom Gravy are a reader favourite!
- My Mom’s Porcupine Meatballs are the best!
- Want an appetizer meatball? These Grape Jelly Meatballs are it!
Happy cooking guys!
Karlynn
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The Best Easy Homemade Meatballs Recipe
- Prep Time
- 20 minutes
- Cook Time
- 15 minutes
- Total Time
- 35 minutes
- Course
- Main Course
- Cuisine
- American
- Servings
- 36
- Calories
- 83
- Author
- Karlynn Johnston
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ground beef
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 cup crushed saltine crackers
- 1/2 cup powdered parmesan
- 3 tablespoons dried parsley
- 4 whole fresh garlic cloves - pressed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- If you have a stand mixer to use it makes this recipe so much easier. If not use a large bowl.
- Put all ingredients in large bowl. If using a mixer, use the paddle attachment. Mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.
- Get large frying pan and put in about 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in the bottom. Set to medium heat.
- Once the meat is well mixed take small amount, about the size of a ping pong ball and roll into a ball and put into the pan. Roll the remaining into meatballs and place in pan.
- When cooking them, I prefer to fully cook them until they are well browned on all sides about 15 minutes.
- Once cooked make sure they have no pink remaining and are cooked through.
- Line a large baking pan with parchment paper. Place all the cooked meatballs on the baking sheet and place in the freezer for minimum 6 hours.
- Once frozen, remove the meatballs from the pans and place in ziploc bags in whatever quantity that will suit your family meals.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Made this recipe?
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Please rate this recipe in the comments below to help out your fellow cooks!
Sharon says
Hi Karlynn, can you bake these meatballs ? I always try to bake everything! 😊
Thanks…
Karlynn Johnston says
They aren’t, we’ll blame Mr Magpie for his posting editing skills LOL! I changed it all back to normal!
Jennie says
Chuckles…blame the big dude, sure. Well, why not? I do the same with mine 😉
Jennie says
Karlynn, they sound delish…but I’m a bit confused: how are they “baked” meatballs? All I see are instructions for frying, with a baking sheet only coming into play for freezing once they’re already cooked.
Am I missing something?
Mardi says
In this recipe, you use four eggs and soda crackers, but in your crockpot meatball recipe you use two eggs and bread crumbs. May I ask why you use a different recipe for the meatballs…especially why one has double the eggs than the other? Thanks!
Karlynn says
Hey Mardi! The reason is that in this recipe for meatballs we have that 1/2 cup of powdered Parmesan – that is going to DRY those meatballs out if we don’t add more egg! They would be little dustball meatballs! The crock pot meatballs don’t have 1/2 cup of powdered Parmesan in them, thus there is no need for extra moisture. HTH!
Anne says
What is the serving size? Is it 83 calories for one meatball? I use a cookie scooper to make mine, which makes a standard size meatball.
angela hammill says
delicious and easy to make !!