In Episode 063 we are making Classic Ham Balls for dinner. This is a super bizarre recipe for a meatball made with ground ham and ground beef. The ingredient list may turn off a lot of people, but I promise they turn out amazing. This Ham Ball recipe is the perfect balance of salty, savory, sweet and tangy!
Transcript
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Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: Okay, you guys, I have such a bizarre recipe for you today. We’re making Ham Balls, which is actually a recipe that is geographically specific to Iowa and Nebraska. I grew up in Iowa. I have a friend that grew up in Nebraska and we both know what hamballs are, and the recipe is almost identical. It is one of the most bizarre recipes you will ever find, and you just have to trust that it’s super delicious. I mean, even from the sauce that goes on them to the mix-ins that go into the meatball, super weird. But it all comes together in this delicious meatball recipe.
Tips and Tricks: Let’s go over a couple tips when you’re making Ham Balls before we get to the full recipe. Number one, you want to make sure that you’re using ground ham. Ground ham is not the same thing as ground pork. You have a couple different options when you are looking for or making ground ham at the grocery store. Sometimes you can ask the butcher there to grind up ham for you. If you live in Iowa, Nebraska, Northern Missouri, Northern Kansas, or maybe even Southern Minnesota or South Dakota, you might be able to actually find ground ham in the grocery store, which is great. Go ahead and buy that.
The other option, if you are not in those areas, is to buy a ham steak at the grocery store, so you’ll need a one to one and a quarter pound ham steak. Cut it up into two inch cubes and then put it in a food processor and you’ll just pulse it about 40 or 50 times and it actually makes perfect ground ham. It will resemble ground beef, so it will grind up to that texture.
The other option is if you have a meat grinder attachment for your stand mixer, you could do it that way as well. But you just want to make sure that you’re using ground ham, not ground pork or ground sausage. It’s not the same thing. Ham has a very specific, smoky, salty flavor that you want in your Ham Balls.
Another super bizarre ingredient that you’re going to use for your hamballs is graham cracker crumbs. Now, usually when you make any kind of meatball, you make a panade to make sure that your meatball stays nice and juicy as it cooks through. Which is usually like bread or saltine crackers or Ritz crackers. In this recipe, we’re using graham cracker crumbs, which sounds super weird, but I promise that that flavor is the perfect balance to the really salty ham. Then in the sauce you’re going to add a ton of vinegar, and so it balances perfectly.
Okay. Another super weird ingredient, I mean we could just go through the whole thing and be like, and this ingredient weird and this ingredient is weird. It just is super weird, but it comes together perfectly. So another ingredient is tomato soup. The hamballs have a sauce that cooks over top of them, and part of that is a can of condensed tomato soup. I promise you it works. The other thing you’re adding to the sauce is a half a cup of white vinegar. That is going to seem an obscene amount of vinegar, but again, I promise it all works together.
Ham Balls Recipe: So now that we’ve got some of those tips out of the way, let’s go ahead and get into the full recipe for Ham Balls To start this recipe, you’re going to want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees and then grab a 9 x 13 baking dish.
You’ll start by making your meatballs. So what you want to do is grab a big bowl and add in one cup of graham cracker crumbs, one egg and three quarters cup of milk. So this is going to be considered your panade. Go ahead and give that a stir together. Then you’re going to add one pound of ground beef and one pound of ground ham. Stir that all together, either with a fork or with clean hands. Then you’re going to form your meatballs. You will make a larger meatball, so it’s about a third of a cup of the hamball mixture for each meatball. Then you’ll place them into the 9×13 baking dish. You’ll have about 12 to 15 meatballs when you’re done.
Now, in a separate bowl, you’re going to whisk together the sauce. So that is just one 10 and three quarter ounce can of condensed tomato soup, one cup of brown sugar, half a cup of white vinegar, and one teaspoon of dry mustard. Whisk that all together so it comes together nice and smooth, and then you just pour that sauce over all of the Ham Balls.
You’ll bake it in the oven uncovered for about one hour. If you have time and you can remember, I always like to go in and baste the tops of the Ham Balls with the sauce, maybe once or twice during cooking. Then you’ll pull them out of the oven and let them cool for about 10 minutes and then it’s time to serve.
What you want to plan on is maybe two or three Ham Ballsper person. Then the side dishes that go fantastic with Ham Balls are mashed potatoes, and then some kind of veggie. Either roasted asparagus, roasted broccoli, oven roasted carrots would be great. I also have a garlic green bean that’s done on the stove top that would be excellent.
So that is your really bizarre recipe for Ham Balls, but trust that it’s absolutely delicious. I’ve even had some people comment that they used to eat these at their grandparents’ house, but over the years they’ve lost the recipe, and when they make this one, it’s exactly the recipe that their grandma used to make. This is a great one. I hope you guys will make it.
Of course, all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode, I will link right in the show notes for you so that you can find it when you’re ready to make it. I would love to have you all rate and review or follow or subscribe to this show, Let’s Make Dinner. As a newer show, it just helps all the podcast platforms show these episodes to new people. So thanks in advance.
Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.
Recipes Mentioned
- Iowa Ham Balls
- Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes
- Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
- Roasted Asparagus
- Roasted Broccoli
- Garlic Green Beans
Equipment Mentioned
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