Beef Meatballs With Tomato Sauce and Rice

Beef meatballs with oregano tomato sauce and rice… An incredibly delicious and easy dinner!

These meatballs with rice are true comfort food! They’re extra soft and juicy, and I really am a sucker for good meatballs. I love meatballs in tomato sauce, in gravy with cranberry sauce, chicken meatballs in tomato and mozzarella, mozzarella stuffed turkey meatballs, and pretty much all kind of meatballs! But this recipe is one of my all-time favourite meatballs. This recipe is my Mum’s recipe, it’s healthy and very flavourful!

How to Make the Perfect Meatballs

This is not just another meatballs recipe if you carefully follow the instructions and my advice I can guarantee that you will be able to make the best meatballs ever! Here’s what I do:

• The secret to soft meatballs is bread! Yes, that’s right, bread! Not breadcrumbs, but just plain white toast bread. All you have to do is soak the bread up in water and add it to the meat mixture. The soaked bread basically expands when cooked, which creates little air pockets between the minced beef, and that’s what makes the meatballs so light and soft!
• Add raw grated onions to the meatballs. If you use diced onions then you may risk getting raw onions in your meatballs. So I found that the best solution is to use grated onions instead, this also adds a lot to the flavour.
• Add Schwartz oregano to the sauce, because that’s what makes the flavour my friends!

How to Form Meatballs Without Making a Mess

To form even meatballs without getting all the minced meat sticking to your hands, make sure to wet your hands before you start. Each meatball should be around 1 inch in diameter, and you should get around 40-50 meatballs (about 5-6 servings). To cook the meatballs you can either fry or bake your meatballs. I usually bake my meatballs, but when I’m in a hurry I just brown them in a frying pan and cook them in the tomato sauce.

The secret ingredient in this delicious tomato sauce for the meatballs, is Schwartz Oregano – It’s very fragrant and flavourful! I love adding dried oregano to food in general, I sprinkle it on my salads, pizza, chicken, roasted vegetables, and sauces! I also used Schwartz bay leaves in this recipe, they’re dried but very flavourful which means that they are gently dried to preserve more flavour. I also love adding bay leaves to chicken, and soups!

Schwartz offer a wide range of dried herbs, you can check it out here. I’ve tried most of them, and I gotta say that I was always impressed. Their products taste more like fresh than dried. Plus, did you know that dried herbs had a more condensed flavour than fresh herbs? So you don’t need to use much when you’re using dried herbs!

I like to serve these meatballs with rice or mashed potatoes, but this can also work perfectly with pasta!

More Easy Recipes To Make with Ground Beef

Dorito Taco Salad

Hamburger Steak (with the best gravy!)

Spaghetti Pie

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

All Dinner Recipes→

Did you make this? Be sure to leave a review below and tag me on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest!

Recipe

5 from 13 votes

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Beef Meatballs With Tomato Sauce and Rice

Prep Time: 10 minutes mins

Cook Time: 35 minutes mins

Total Time: 45 minutes mins

Author: Diana

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6 servings

Ingredients

Meatballs:

• ▢ 1 pound (450g) ground beef
• ▢ 10 grams plain white bread
• ▢ 1 small yellow onion finely diced or grated
• ▢ 3 cloves garlic minced
• ▢ ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ▢ Salt to taste

Tomato sauce:

• ▢ 2 cloves garlic minced
• ▢ 1 onion chopped
• ▢ 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• ▢ 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• ▢ 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
• ▢ 4 cups (1 liter) water
• ▢ ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ▢ 1 bay leaf
• ▢ Salt to taste

Instructions

• Start by soaking the plain white bread in water.
• In a bowl, using your hands mix the minced beef, with the garlic, onion. soaked bread (remove the water), black pepper, and salt.
• Wet your hands with water and start rolling the mixture into 1 inch balls. Repeat with remaining mixture.
• Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat, and brown the meatballs all over (about 4-5 minutes). OR bake in the oven on 360°F/180°C for 20 minutes.
• To make the sauce:
• Heat oil in a skillet and sauté garlic with onion for about 5 minutes. Make sure to stir constantly.
• Add the flour and keep stirring.
• Add salt, oregano, bay leaf, and tomato paste.
• In a medium pot add 1 litre of water, then add the tomato sauce mixture and mix well. Leave it until it starts boiling.
• When it starts boiling, add the meatballs. Lower the heat so it bubbles gently, close with a lid and let it cook for about 20 minutes or until sauce thickens.
• Serve with cooked rice or mashed potatoes.

Nutrition Information

Calories: 321kcal, Carbohydrates: 7g, Protein: 15g, Fat: 25g, Saturated Fat: 13g, Cholesterol: 59mg, Sodium: 99mg, Potassium: 338mg, Sugar: 2g, Vitamin A: 80IU, Vitamin C: 4.6mg, Calcium: 30mg, Iron: 2mg

This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.

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