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Homemade Meatball Recipe

with Fresh Tomato Sauce

This Homemade Meatball recipe offers comfort food at its best. The baked meatballs offer a healthy alternative to the more usual fried recipes.

Once cooked, the meatballs are further baked in a fresh tomato sauce (use one can of tomatoes if fresh ones are unavailable). Purists would have you remove the skins of the tomatoes, but I always cook them with the skins on and find that this doesn't compromise on flavor. Our meal planning ideas below offer alternative ways as to how to make meatballs.

Easy

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour for meatballs and 40 minutes further once assembled

Makes about 16 meatballs

Ingredients:

2lbs 2oz / 1 kg ground beef

1 medium onion, very finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 cup coriander, loosely packed and chopped

1 teaspoon salt

a little vegetable or olive oil

Fresh Tomato Sauce

2 medium onions, chopped

6 large tomatoes, chopped

2 cloves garlic

½ cup loosely packed fresh coriander

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 cup water

little oil for shallow frying

Method:

Preheat oven to 300° F / 150° C.
In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, onion, garlic, ground cumin and coriander, fresh coriander and salt. Shape into balls, just bigger than a golf ball.
Place meatballs on greased baking trays. Gently brush with a little oil. Bake for about one hour until the outside of the meatballs is brown. Turn once during the cooking time.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Gently fry the onions until they are soft and well browned.
Add the garlic, tomatoes, sugar, coriander and water. Season with salt and pepper.
Simmer for about 15 minutes, until the sauce thickens.

To assemble:

Place the meatballs in an ovenproof dish. Cover with tomato sauce. Bake at 350° F / 180° C for about 40 minutes. The meatballs will cook a little longer and the sauce will become richer.
Serve this homemade meatball recipe with rice and cooked vegetables or a salad.

Meal planning tip: use leftovers for:

Meatball Sub Recipe

Albondigas Soup Recipe

Meatball Soup Recipe