[baking] Meatball Mini-Muffins

A friend gave The Inconsistent Toddler 1/4th of a meatball and it was eaten with gusto. I may be a vegetarian, but The Inconsistent Toddler is not. I looked at the price of kosher (aka all beef) frozen meatballs at the store: $8 for 18 meatballs. One pound of ground beef is $5. Frugal me says, "Okay, guess I should learn how to cook meatballs."

This is not a completely developed recipe. Cook this version at your own peril; I mean it will make food and good food that The Inconsistent Toddler enjoys, but maybe not perfect-perfect. I will remove this paragraph when I'm consistently happy with the recipe and its results.

Table of Contents

Ingredients

  • at least one carrot [I used 1/2 bag 99¢ baby carrots from Food Lion on deal]
  • a bunch of fresh parsley
  • 1 onion [I used yellow because it was 89¢ from Food Lion]
  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 16 TBSP or 1 cup Italian Bread Crumbs [substitute plain bread crumbs and 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning]
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp kosher salt

Materials

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
  2. Peel and chop the onion (1) into a size that will fit in the food processor and add it to the food processor. Pulse the food processor a few times just to reduce the volume the onion takes up.
  3. Chop the carrots (minimum 1) into a size that will fit in the food processor and add it. Pulse as before.
  4. Sprinkle the parsley (1 bunch) into the food processor. Turn the food processor to low and blend until a consistent marinara-sauce consistency and a blended appearance. It may be necessary, and certainly was in my case, to stop several times during the process and scrape down the sides of the food processor with a silicone spatula to ensure everything is consistently blended.
  5. Once the produce is good and blended, add the ground beef (1 lb) and blend/scrape sides into a consistent appearance. I once again recommend on low.
  6. To that, add the eggs (2) and the salt (1 tsp) and once again, blend/scrape sides into a consistent appearance.
  7. The final step in the food processor is to add the Italian breadcrumbs (1 cup). And you've guessed it ... blend/scrape sides into a consistent appearance.
  8. The resulting texture may not be what you associate with meatballs. No matter, they still taste delicious. The vegetables are not meant to be hidden as they contribute nutrition but most importantly FLAVOR into the meatball.
  9. Grab your 1 TBSP portion scoop and start scooping little portions into each of the wells of your mini-muffin tin. Depending on how many vegetables you used, you'll get at least 24 mini-muffins of meatball.
  10. Put the portioned meatball mini-muffins into your oven and set a kitchen timer for 18 minutes.
  11. When the timer goes off, take your mini-muffin tin out of the oven, briefly, and rotate it so the part previously facing the front of the oven is now facing the back of the oven, then back into the oven it goes for an additional 18 minutes of cook time.
  12. When this timer goes off, remove the mini-muffin tin from the oven and place the whole tin onto the cooling rack for 5 minutes (set a timer).
  13. At the end of those 5 minutes, remove the mini-muffin meatballs from the tin and continue to cool them on the cooling rack. The tin can then be reused for any additional meatball material which remains in the food processor, repeating from step 9.
  14. Meatballs are ready to eat once they cool to an appropriate temperature, or can be frozen for use within 3 months once they cool to ambient room temperature.

Notes

To freeze, let cool to ambient room temperature and store in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months.

The large cooking time accounts for the large amount of moisture that the vegetables have to offer, and the rotating of the mini-muffin tin prevents burning due to oven temperature variance; this is especially necessary given the large cook time.

To make these gluten-free, use cornmeal in place of the regular bread crumb substitution listed in the ingredients, and make sure to add Italian seasoning separately.

I hear tell that these are great when made with Impossible ground beef, however those costs take us outside of frugal territory where veg-balls are less expensive, so I won't be trying a vegetarian version of this unless food prices substantially change. If you do try to make a vegetarian version, please give us the knowledge in the comments.

bibliography. I made a mashup of YummyToddlerFood's healthy meatballs (the veg) with Kosher's meatballs rules, given as how YummyToddlerFood isn't kosher and this author's household is. After that, it was trial and error and experimentation and The Inconsistent Toddler's yum or yuck face to figure out the most delicious meatball recipe for our household.

CookLang

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title: Meatball Mini-Muffins
source: this website
author: TheInfamousJ via Amy Palanjian and Sina Mizrahi
cuisine: Italian
course: Dinner
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