In episode 091 we are making BBQ Baked Meatballs for dinner. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can customize the flavor with your family’s favorite BBQ sauce. Mix up the meatballs, baste with BBQ sauce and bake! Dinner is ready in under 30 mins.
(( There is also an Instant Pot Version of BBQ Meatballs!))
Serve it up with Garlic Mashed Potatoes and a veggie for a great dinner!
Transcript
Click for the full transcript.
Intro: Hey. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: Hey. Hey everybody. Welcome. Happy Thursday. So before we get into this episode, I am actually going to give a little disclaimer. We have a lot of construction going on in our basement right now, and my office is right above where they are doing the construction. So we may hear a little bit of pounding, some nail guns, and some saws, but hopefully, it’s not too distracting. So let’s go ahead and talk about the recipe that we’re making for dinner tonight.
We are making barbecue baked meatballs for dinner, and this is such a delicious recipe. It is super flavorful. The meatballs are actually flavored. You know the actual ground meat mixture is flavored, and then it’s also flavored with your favorite barbecue sauce, which makes it kind of custom to your family. So if you like more of a spicy barbecue sauce if you like more of a vinegar or a sweeter stickier, which is the kind that I like. We’re in Kansas City and that is traditional Kansas City barbecue. Use whatever type of barbecue sauce your family likes, and that way it is suited to your family and your taste buds.
So this recipe is probably going to take you about 45 minutes to make and bake, and then dinner will be ready. You are going to have about 22 meatballs when you’re done. I say serve three meatballs per adult. If you’ve got some really hungry ones, serve four meatballs. If you’ve got some kids, maybe one or two meatballs. So this is going to serve anywhere from five to seven people. As far as side dishes, we love a garlic mashed potato with the barbecue baked meatballs then add a veggie on the side. Whatever you can grab in the grocery store – green beans, roasted broccoli, corn on the cob, even frozen peas is excellent.
Tips and Tricks: So let’s get into a few tips and tricks before we get into the full recipe. First of all, you’re going to be using ground beef and ground pork. When we talk about ground pork here in this application, we’re talking about true ground pork, not ground sausage. You want just plain ground pork, which actually is a super economical ground meat to add to just about any meatball recipe. It is super inexpensive. Then with the ground beef, you know when you go to the grocery store, there’s all different percentages. 85/15, 90/10, 93/7, 80/20. You want to stick in that 85/15, 90/10 range for your meatballs because it’s going to have enough fat to be really nice and flavorful, but it’s not going to be so fatty that you’re going to have greasy, disgusting meatballs. Nobody wants disgusting meatballs. 85/15, 90/10 is going to be your window right there. Leave that 80/20 for grilled hamburgers. It’s perfect for grilled hamburgers.
Another little secret when you’re making meatballs, and this goes for just about any meatball, is to use what’s called a panade. A panade is basically a mixture of starch and a liquid that keeps a ground meat recipe nice and tender and juicy, even if you cook it for a long time. In this recipe, we are using a mixture of bread and milk to keep things nice and juicy, and moist. I know that’s the worst word in the whole world, but it’s true.
The other two things, let’s talk about really quick are the barbecue rub and the barbecue sauce. So we said in the beginning, use the barbecue sauce that your family likes. Pretty much anything will work unless you’ve got a super watery barbecue sauce that’s more of like, a liquid than a thick barbecue sauce. You want something that’s a little bit thicker that will cling to the meatballs while they’re baking.
Number two, you’re going to make a barbecue rub seasoning that you’re going to put into the actual meatball mixture. If you have a barbecue rub that you really like or a barbecue seasoning, use that. Take those kitchen shortcuts when you can find them.
BBQ Meatballs Recipe: All right, I think that’s all the tips and tricks that I have for this recipe. So let’s go ahead and get into making your barbecue-baked meatballs for dinner. You’re going to start this recipe by preheating your oven to 400 degrees, and then you want to grab a really large-rimmed baking sheet and cover that with parchment paper. That’s going to help your barbecue meatballs bake, but not stick to the pan. Then we’re going to make the barbecue meatball mixture. So in a large bowl, we’re going to start with the panade. You want to combine two cups of bread that are torn into pieces. For the bread you can use just plain white bread, you could use a French loaf, you could use ciabatta. The tip here is don’t use really seedy bread. Just use traditional white or wheat bread. Then if it has kind of a crusty crust, remove that first. If it’s just a piece of plain white bread, you can add the crust in there.
So mix that bread with half a cup of milk. Sometimes I will just wash my hands and then get my hands in there and kind of squish it together so it makes a really nice mushy panade for your meatballs. Now, if you don’t want to get your hands in there, that’s fine. I would let it sit for just a few minutes so that the bread can soak up all of the milk. Then to that mixture, you’re going to add one lightly beaten egg, one and a half tablespoons of your favorite barbecue sauce, one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, and two teaspoons of chili powder. One teaspoon each of garlic powder, onion powder, and kosher salt. Then half a teaspoon of smoked paprika. That’s one of my very favorite spices in my spice cabinet. I love smoked paprika. Make sure you have the smoked, not just regular. So give that all a stir. Then we’re going to add in that beef and pork.
You need one pound of ground beef and one pound of ground pork. Give that a little mix together, either with clean hands or a fork, and then you’re going to roll your meatballs into about the size of a golf ball. How I like to do this, to keep things really efficient in my kitchen, I like to use one of those medium-sized cookie scoops. Scoop it all out, and pop it on the baking sheet. Then after I’ve scooped it all out, then I take my hands, wet them just a little bit, and roll all the meatballs so that they’re nice actual meatballs, not just little lumps. It’s not necessary to have uniform-sized meatballs, but you want them to be somewhat similar in size, and that is for the baking time. You want them to be able to bake and finish at the same time. So you don’t have one tiny meatball in the corner and one huge meatball over in this corner, and they’re not cooking at the same time.
So at this point, you want to brush all of the meatballs really generously with your favorite barbecue sauce. Pop them in the oven and bake ’em for about 15 minutes. Then you’re going to pull them out and baste them again with your favorite barbecue sauce and pop them back in for about another 15 minutes. You want your meatballs to have an internal temperature of around 165 degrees, and that means they are cooked through. Now when they’re done cooking, you’re going to let them cool for about 10 minutes and then it’s time to enjoy your dinner. So delicious. I do like to serve a little extra barbecue sauce on the side in case people want to have a little dip dunk for their meatballs.
Now, as we said at the very beginning of the episode, we love to serve these with a garlic or buttery mashed potato. You could also do a crispy oven potato would be delicious. Then whatever your family’s favorite vegetable is; corn on the cob, green beans, peas, asparagus, broccoli, whatever you have, whatever your family likes to eat.
Now, this is a really fun part of this recipe. I also have an Instant Pot Barbecue Baked meatball recipe that I will link in the show notes for you. So if you love to use your Instant Pot, you could do that route instead of baking them in the oven.
So I think that covers this full recipe for barbecue baked meatballs. If you are loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That just makes it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed.
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Outro: Thank you so much for listening and as always, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.
Double Dip: Ooh. Thank you so much for sticking around guys. I love this double dip portion of the Let’s Make Dinner Podcast. So the double dip, you can always listen to the end of the episode for this week to figure out what we are making next week. That way if you like to cook along and have these dinner ideas for every Thursday, you’ll know what groceries to have for next week.
So, next week we are making a new recipe for Mom’s Dinner and I am super excited about this one. We actually just had it for dinner last night, and it is knockout delicious. They are Grilled Chicken Burgers with a dill pickle slaw. Woo, and a garlic Aioli. Really, really delicious. Okay, so let’s go through what you need to make these chicken burgers. I will tell you this recipe is not on Mom’s Dinner quite yet. It will be coming out within the next week. So when the episode airs next week, this recipe should be live. At the time of this recording, the recipe is not live yet.
But here’s what you’re going to need. One tablespoon of flat-leaf parsley, you’re going to need some tomato paste, fresh garlic, milk, and two tablespoons of mayonnaise. Kosher salt and pepper, onion powder, half a cup of shredded asiago cheese, one slice of white or wheat sandwich bread, and then one pound of ground chicken. You want to make sure that you’re not buying the all-lean breast meat. You just want the regular ground chicken. Then you’re obviously going to need buns for your chicken burger.
Then for the garlic aioli, you need another half cup of mayonnaise, a lemon, and more garlic, and that’s it for the garlic aioli. Then for the dill pickle slaw, you need two cups of angel hair coleslaw. It’s the really thinly sliced coleslaw, a third cup of thinly sliced red onion, a half a cup of chopped dill pickles. We like to get the really good ones that are in the fridge, so any brand that is refrigerated that you like will work here. One tablespoon of chopped jalapeno, two tablespoons of that pickle juice, and then some olive oil and kosher salt, and that’s it.
So I hope that you’ll join me next week for the Grilled Chicken Burger with garlic aioli and dill pickle slaw. It’s going to be perfect for your summer. All right, until then, I hope you guys have a great week.
Recipes & Equipment Mentioned:
- https://momsdinner.net/baked-bbq-meatballs/
- https://momsdinner.net/instant-pot-mashed-potatoes/
- https://momsdinner.net/oven-roasted-broccoli/
- Instant Pot Corn on the Cob
- Cookie/Meatball Scoop : https://amzn.to/3lTaRPS
Next Week
I hope you join me every Thursday for a new episode and a fresh dinner idea. Next week we are making Grilled Chicken Burgers with Dill Pickle Slaw. Grab the ingredients and we’ll chat on Thursday.
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