Tender and Fluffy Meatballs with Tomato Sauce - Healthy Recipes Blog (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to firm meatballs? ›

Egg: Adds more moisture and helps the mixture firm up once cooked. Parmesan: My secret ingredient for the best meatballs! Parmigiano-Reggiano adds flavor and salt to our mixture.

Egg and breadcrumbs are common mix-ins to add moisture and tenderness. Another binder option that people swear by is a panade, which is fresh or dry breadcrumbs that have been soaked in milk. “The soaked breadcrumbs help keep the proteins in the meat from shrinking,” as food writer Tara Holland explained in the Kitchn.

It's an extra step that adds hands-on cook time, but it pays off in flavor dividends. Simmering meatballs in sauce also helps keeps them tender while they cook, while imbuing the sauce with additional flavor.

Don't overcook your meatballs! Most recipes instruct us to bake the meatballs until they are completely cooked. Next, we are to let them simmer away in some kind of sauce for hours. It should be no surprise that your meatball is going to be completely overcooked and dry by the time you eat it.

Milk: We will mix a bit of milk with the breadcrumbs to form a panade, which will help to keep our meatballs nice and moist. Ground beef and pork: I like to use a 50/50 mix of the two to make meatballs, but you can also make all-beef or all-pork meatballs if you prefer.

An egg is usually a good start, as that can help with the tenderness and texture, but the king of meatball binders is breadcrumbs soaked in milk (also known as a panade). Soaking the breadcrumbs first makes them pliable and soggy, which allows them to easily and evenly mix into the ground meat.

Place the browned meatballs in the sauce and cook for a minimum of 1 hour on low heat to allow the meatballs to absorb the flavor of and braise in the sauce. When the meatballs are finished, serve with choice of pasta, grated cheese and Italian bread.

Why do you put baking soda in meatballs? ›

Baking soda, otherwise known as sodium bicarbonate, appears often in köfte recipes. It raises the PH level of the meat, making it harder for the meat's protein molecules to bond. This in turn allows the meat to retain water as it cooks. And more water means a moist meatball.

A traditional size for this sort of meatball is 2 to 3 inches across, but you can make them any size you want. Once you roll the meatball in your hands, roll it in the flour to give it a good coating. Set each one on a baking sheet as you work.

Because meat shrinks when cooked, mince proteins are likely to separate and crumble unless bound together. Whether it's breadcrumbs or egg (or both), or simply salt, binding the mince is a crucial step in maintaining the softness of your meatballs while preventing them from falling apart.

You only need a small amount of egg – it's there only to help the cooked meatball retain its shape, and shouldn't detract from the meat's flavour or texture. Filler ingredients like breadcrumbs or flour are important too because they stop the meatballs becoming dry.

3. Add moisture. Since the protein in meat makes it shrink when cooked and can result in tough meatballs, you want some insurance against that. Eggs and binders like breadcrumbs mixed with milk all help with keeping meatballs tender and moist, so don't skip any of these.

Tenderizing the Meat:

As the collagen in the meat dissolves over time, it transforms into gelatin, which not only adds a silky texture to the sauce but also contributes to the overall richness and depth of flavor. The longer the simmer, the more tender and succulent the meatballs become.

Because the role of eggs in meatballs is primarily structural, the amount of eggs you use does matter. You want enough to keep the mixture stable and easy to handle, but too many will make the mixture overly soft.