Meatballs With Any Meat
Description: Making great meatballs is all about memorizing a basic ratio that you can adjust to suit your taste. Start with a pound of ground meat — any kind will work, even fish if you want to take it in that direction. Add 1/2 cup bread crumbs for lightness, a teaspoon of salt, and an egg to bind it together. That’s all you need. Pepper and other spices, chopped herbs and minced allium (garlic, onion, scallions or shallot) can be added to taste. Then broil or fry as you like. Why You Should Trust This Recipe Melissa Clark, a food writer for more than 25 years, creates her fresh takes on classic recipes by trying at least half a dozen different approaches. A professional recipe tester then makes her recipe a minimum of three times (and sometimes more than 12) to ensure it’ll come out perfectly for all home cooks. For these meatballs, Melissa tinkered with ratios of seasonings to breadcrumbs to ensure the formula works with any type of ground meat.
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground meat (pork, beef, veal, chicken, turkey or a combination)
- 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, more as needed
- Black pepper and/or ground cumin, curry powder, chile flakes, garam masala, etc., to taste
- Minced garlic, onion, scallions or shallot
- Chopped parsley, basil or cilantro
- Olive oil, for frying (optional)
Instructions
- In a large bowl, gently combine all ingredients. Roll into 1 1/2-inch balls. Transfer to a baking sheet.
- Broil until golden and firm, 7 to 10 minutes. Or fry in oil until deeply browned all over. Sprinkle with more salt before serving.