Air Fryer Chef: Awesome Homemade Meatballs

“Homemade Meatballs” is one of my surprise air fryer successes. These meatballs are moist and full of flavor. Add the meatballs to spaghetti and sauce for an easy supper or serve as a meatball po-boy for a delicious sandwich meal. The air fryer works well to cook a small batch of meatballs for one or two people. You don’t have to heat up a large conventional oven. Plus, air can circulate around each meatball — an important concept for air fryer cooking — so the meatballs cook quickly and brown evenly. These homemade meatballs rival ready-to-cook meatballs from Trader Joe’s and the frozen ones found at grocery stores. My recipe makes a two-pound batch — more servings than for one or two people. So, I freeze what I don’t immediately use for later meals. Or, I just bake all the meatballs in a traditional oven. However, the frozen meatballs never last long. This recipe makes a great variation on spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner. I have listed several tips for making the best meatballs.

Air fryer experiments.

Ah, my saga of experimenting with air fryer cooking has continued past Christmas and well into in the new year. I am venturing past baked pastries and on to cooking with meat, chicken and seafood dishes. For example, salmon steaks are great for air fryer cooking. For ground beef — I’ve attempted to cook hamburger patties, meatloaf and meatballs in the air fryer. Homemade hamburgers were a bust — they were dry, tough and shrunk in size. Meatloaf did not cook evenly. I’ve had the best luck with meatballs — these turned out perfectly. The meatballs cooked quickly and evenly; they were just right.

How did I made flavorful meatballs? Here are a few recipe tips:

Although I baked these meatballs in an air fryer; they turn out just as tasty when baked in a conventional oven. The key to my meatballs is really the recipe and ingredients. Here are a few of tips.

**Ground pork makes up half of the meat in this recipe. Pork just adds alot of flavor And, I use ground pork, not sausage. Don’t skip it.

**The ground beef shouldn’t be too, too lean. Fat also adds flavor, so I use ground beef which is 85/15 lean-to-fat ratio. This blend of beef is still lean, but does contain enough fat to add flavor.

**Ground beef can be either coarsely or finely ground. A very fine grind of ground beef holds together better.

**Bread crumbs make a good binder. In this recipe, I use plain bread crumbs and add an Italian herb blend for a flavor “pop.” Adding this ingredient separately adds more Italian seasoning. No Italian blend? Add dried oregano, thyme and fresh parsley individually.

**Garlic powder, salt and pepper also add seasoning.

**I love onions in ground beef mixtures such as meatballs and meatloaf. So, I include finely chopped onions. However, if your family doesn’t care for onions, they can be omitted. (Substitute in onion powder.)

**Meatballs bake quickly. The meatballs should be completely defrosted (not frozen). If frozen, take them out of the freezer several hours ahead of time to overnight. If the raw meat is fresh — you’re ready to go.

**My air fryer basket is round. Since my air fryer heats from the outside towards the middle — I place the meatballs in a circle around the edges of my air fryer basket while leaving space between each one. I don’t place a meatball in the center of the air fryer basket.

Here are the ingredients:

Although meatballs and meatloaf are similar in terms of ingredients there are several differences in my recipes. While I add ketchup/barbecue sauce and milk (to bind the breadcrumbs) to meatloaf, I omit these ingredients in meatballs. My meatball recipe includes Italian seasoning for a bright “zip.” And, no bread crumbs? Grind up several slices of stale French bread using a small food chopper or food processor.

Making the recipe

Mixing up the meatballs is simple. First chop or mince the onion finely. Then, add the ground beef and pork, eggs, bread crumbs and mined onion to a bowl and mix to combine. Mix to combine these ingredients completely. Last, blend in the Italian herbs, garlic and onion powders, salt and pepper.

You really have to use your hands to blend these ingredients together. I never seem to have kitchen gloves when I need them. So, I substitute small ziplock baggies for kitchen gloves when blending the ingredients.

Form the meatballs into golf-sized balls (about 1/3 cup). Press firmly so that the meatballs won’t fall apart. This recipe makes 18 meatballs which will serve 6 to 8 people. Not a small batch. So, I freeze most of the raw meatballs for future use.

Place five meatballs around the perimeter of the air fryer basket — spacing apart so they don’t touch. I don’t place one in the center — since this part of my air fryer basket cooks slowly. Bake for six minutes at 350 degrees. Using tongs, turn the meatballs over and cook six additional minutes. If desired, check the internal temperature with an instant read thermometer. It should read at 145 – 160 degrees.

To bake the entire batch of meatballs, I use my conventional oven — not the air fryer. It just takes too long to bake multiple batches of meatballs using an the air fryer and defeats the purpose of “easy cooking.” In this case, I spread the meatballs out on a rimmed baking sheet at 350 degrees and bake for 12 – 15 minutes (and I don’t flip them half way through baking).

For this meal, I served the meatballs with spaghetti and commercial pasta sauce. This makes an easy supper meal.

I have had both recipe successes and flops using the air fryer to cook dishes. The meatballs are one of my air fryer success stories. They are juicy and flavorful and make a welcome variation from meat sauce with spaghetti. This recipe is going into my “keeper” file.

Enjoy!