Freezer Meals: Meatballs

The day of Grace's second birthday party I was in need of another main course to serve at her party. I had intended to pick up frozen meatballs from Ikea (only place I know that sells them here,) but I had forgotten. Typical. So I hopped onto pinterest in hopes to find a quick and easy barbecue meatball recipe. I was pretty quickly annoyed when every recipe I opened up included two ingredients:

1. frozen meatballs.
2. barbecue sauce

Finally, I just winged it and came up with my own meatball recipe and it turned out great. The wonderful thing about meatballs is that you can mix up huge batches just as easily as a small batch, and once they are baked and cooled you can separate and freeze them into portions for each meal. The recipe below makes about 50 meatballs but could easily be doubled.

And meatballs aren't just for spaghetti. We use them in meatball subs, barbecue meatballs, meatball stroganoff, or reheated with taco seasoning and served over some spanish rice.

And I have now use the word "meatball" more than I thought I would in my entire life.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
2 lbs ground beef (not lean!)
4 eggs
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs

2 tbs oregano
2 tbs thyme
2 tbs basil

Directions
Combine all ingredients in large bowl. Using clean hands (and take off your rings!) thoroughly mix all ingredients evenly. Use hands to form the meat into small balls, roughly the size of a doughnut hole and place on broiling pan so that fat/grease can drain off of them. Place meatballs on pan with space between so that they can cook evenly and don't stick together*.  Cook at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove and let cool completely. If using, use immediately in recipe. If freezing, let cool for one hour on countertop. Place family size servings ** in freezer proof container or baggie and freeze. When using from freezer, let thaw for  45 minutes to an hour before using in a recipe.

Enjoy!

*I can fit all 50 onto one pan with just a little space between each of them
** We use 10-12 for 2 adults. 15 for 2 adults and 1 toddler.

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Freezer Meals: Meatballs