RECIPE: Smothered Meatballs

This is one of those dishes that my kids are always happy to see on the table! We love these meatballs served over mashed potatoes, but you could also serve them over rice or pasta.

Even better, if I have a stash of meatballs in the freezer, it takes very little work to throw these together. If you love meatballs as much as we do, when you buy a club-size pack of ground beef, whip up a double or triple batch of meatballs and freeze them (cooked or uncooked) so you can throw together a meal like this one with just a few minutes of hands-on work. If you're going to freeze them uncooked, I recommend putting them on a cookie sheet to freeze (like you would do for berries) then pack them into meal-sized portions. That way the raw meat won't all stick together and form one giant meatball!

Ingredients:

Meatballs:

¾ lb ground beef

¼ cup parmesan cheese

½ cup bread crumbs

1 egg

1 ½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

½ tsp each salt and pepper

1 tbsp canola or vegetable oil

Sauce:

2 tbsp butter

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, diced

2 tbsp flour

1 ½ cups milk

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp paprika

Instructions:

In a medium bowl, combine all meatball ingredients except oil and mix until well blended. Shape into 16 meatballs. In a medium frying pan, cook meatballs in oil over medium heat until completely cooked through. Remove meatballs from frying pan.

In the same pan, saute onions and garlic in butter until onions begin to soften. Add the flour and stir until it's completely coated with butter. Add milk, salt, pepper and paprika. Stir constantly over medium heat until sauce begins to thicken. 

Return meatballs to pan and simmer until sauce is thick and bubbly and meatballs are heated through.

Serves 4. 

What is your favourite way to serve meatballs? 

I shared this recipe at Tasty Tuesday, Full Plate Thursday,  Frugal Food Thursday, Recipe Swap Thursday, Tip Day Thursday, Friday Favorites, Fat Camp Friday and the GCC Recipe Swap.