A perfect meatball is a work of art. It’s moist and has a springy texture and tons of flavor. At least, it should be. Too often, homemade meatballs can go wrong, flaking into a flavorful mush or being well-formed with no taste at all. The trick with meatballs is they have to marinate in sauce long enough to soak in flavor, but not so long that they fall apart.
Adding one extra step to your meatball routine will infuse meatballs and their sauce with flavor faster and help you hit the sweet spot between saucy and oversaturated. Set aside about ¼ of your meatball mix while you’re forming meatballs and sauté it, letting it become the flavor-packed base for the sauce. From there, build your sauce on the stovetop, and let it simmer for a while before adding your already browned and ready-for-sauce meatballs to the mix.
This meatball sauce hack is just one of a few ways to build the perfect meatball. Other tips from Dan Whalen, cookbook author and founder of The Food in My Beard (@tfimb on Instagram), could really help you level up your meatball game. He answered a few questions exclusively for Chowhound on how to achieve meatball perfection, and his first tip is pretty simple: Add more ingredients for more flavor. “I have never had a meatball and said to myself, ‘Wow, there is too much garlic and parmesan in there.’ Feel free to turn up the volume on these ingredients!” he says.
How to build the perfect plate of meatballs
The perfect meatball starts with how you make the meat mixture. It’s all about using fresh, flavorful ingredients and a binder like oats or breadcrumbs with some egg. Dan Whalen’s typical combo is made of meat, fresh parsley, parmesan cheese, garlic, salt, and breadcrumbs. You could also use stale bread instead of breadcrumbs. “A more flavorful bread like sourdough would make a better base for meatballs,” Whalen says.
Meatballs are made with a ground beef base that may also include ground pork, veal, chicken, or turkey. The rest of Whalen’s usual mix-ins are what you’ll see in many other meatball recipes, too. He uses a two-step cooking process also helps infuse more flavor into the meatball. First, broil the meatballs on a sheet pan to get a crust on all sides. Then, you’ll add the broiled meatballs to your sauce — drippings and all — to make the flavor richer and more nuanced. You can also soak your breadcrumbs in milk to infuse more moisture into your meatballs. A little cream cheese will infuse moisture into your meatballs as well. Or try adding some bologna into the meat mixture for meatballs with more depth.
