These 1-Ingredient Meatballs Are the Best Weeknight Dinner Shortcut
This smart trick requires no mixing and minimal shaping.
Simply Recipes / Adobe Stock
If I had a dollar for every meatball I’ve made in my life, I would be rich enough to hire a personal chef to make my meatballs for me. As a cook working for a catering company, I made dozens and dozens of tender, fluffy beef and pork meatballs, which we cooked in a zesty tomato sauce as a very popular appetizer.
For a while after that job, I swore off making meatballs altogether, but thanks to a hack I learned from one of my Simply Recipes editors, I’ve got a one-ingredient meatball in my back pocket (not literally!) that saves time without compromising flavor.
How To Use Ground Sausage for Meatballs
Associate Editorial Director Myo Quinn shared that a quick meatball workaround is to use pre-seasoned Italian sausage. She buys sausage in casings as the meat for her meatballs. Since the meat is already seasoned, there’s no need to add anything to them. Just squeeze the meat from the casing, roll it into balls the size of your choosing as you go, and start frying.
Of course, you can certainly add other ingredients (bread crumbs, eggs, Parmesan cheese, herbs, etc) to the sausage to get even closer to a true meatball, but the great thing about this hack is that you don’t have to. The ground sausage is flavorful and juicy as-is.
Once you cook the sausage balls, you can use them in all sorts of dishes where you would normally find meatballs. The first time I tried this was in a quick and easy version of Italian Wedding Soup. Swapping the meatballs for one-inch sausage balls cut my prep time in half, making the special occasion dish weeknight-friendly. These sausage meatballs are also excellent in marinara sauce, as an appetizer, or over pasta as a meal. And they’re perfect as a pizza topping.
Simply Recipes / Adobe Stock
Tips for Using Ground Sausage for Meatballs
Use ground sausage that you personally love. Since you’re not adding anything to the sausage, it’s important to find one that’s already full of flavor.
It’s best to work with the sausage when it’s cold, so use it straight from the fridge.
Make a double batch and then cook and freeze half so you have an even easier dinner waiting for you on a day when you really need it.
