Oven-Baked Meatballs
Oven-baked meatballs, fluffy and juicy, like the ones fried in oil. And they have another advantage: they're seasoned with granulated garlic, so you can go out in public without worry after eating them 😉 To enhance the flavor, I used nutritional yeast flakes, which also act as a binder for the meat (instead of egg and breadcrumbs).
As a model, I used the rotisserie meatballs from Selgros, very good, which were recommended to me by a friend. I tried them and agreed with him, they're good, but after reading the 6 E-numbers added to the composition for meatballs with only 24-hour shelf life, I said I won't consume that, but I can try to make them at home.
Ingredients
500 g ground pork (I ground pork neck)
1 level teaspoon salt
1 onion
1 tablespoon oil
2 heaping tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1 level teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground dried onion flakes
ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon baking soda (optional)
50 ml cold water
How to prepare oven-baked meatballs
- If you usually grind meat at home, start the night before by cutting the meat into cubes and adding salt over them. Leave like this until the next day when you'll prepare the meatballs and grind it as fine as possible. This is the ideal situation. If you usually buy pre-ground meat, salt it and knead it well, then refrigerate until the next day when you'll prepare the meatballs.
- Finely chop the onion and sauté in oil until very soft.
- Add the sautéed onion to the ground meat. Add the seasonings (nutritional yeast, granulated garlic and onion, oregano, black pepper to taste). Knead well to combine. At this point you can heat a pan (the one you sautéed the onion in is fine) and fry a small meatball from the meat mixture. Taste the fried meat and determine if you need more seasonings (salt, pepper or garlic) in the meat mixture.
- When the meat is seasoned to your taste, add the water and baking soda and knead until the water is completely absorbed into the meat.
* the baking soda will make them fluffier; it doesn't affect the taste if you decide not to use it - With wet hands, form meatballs from the meat mixture. I made larger meatballs so they wouldn't dry out in the oven. I got 12 meatballs from the whole mixture. I flattened them in my palm so they cook evenly.
- Place the meatballs on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Bake at 200°C for 25 minutes. Then switch the oven to grill at maximum and bake for another 5 minutes until golden brown.
Meat mixture for meatballs
Formed meatballs
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