Beef Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Name: Beef Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Cream
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Lean beef 350 g; Cream or milk ¼ cup (50 ml); Stale white bread 1 slice; Flour for dredging; Vegetable oil 3–4 tbsp; Salt, black pepper, ground coriander, nutmeg to taste; Tomato paste 2 tbsp (or 1½ cups tomato juice) (33 g); Water 300 ml + ½ cup; Cream the rest, about 50 ml (or 2–3 tbsp sour cream); Garlic 1 clove; Sugar 1–2 tsp (5–9 g); Salt, black pepper, coriander to taste

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50 mins

It just so happened that homemade beef meatballs became a regular dish in our house.

First, meatballs cook very quickly. Even after work, when you’re really tired, making meatballs hardly takes any time; the main thing is to thaw the meat in advance. Second, meatballs in tomato sauce go perfectly with almost any usual side dish: rice, mashed potatoes, couscous. And third, importantly, meatballs are always delicious. You’d think they’re just balls of ground meat simmered in sauce. Nothing special.

But in many cuisines around the world, meatballs are a staple. That said, it’s often hard to tell meatballs apart from very similar dishes: Swedish meatballs, Sicilian meatballs with rice, croquettes, falafel, Königsberger Klopse, korokke… The difference lies in how they’re cooked and what goes into the mixture. But almost always, meatballs contain a filler. Often it’s rice, grains or onion, but most often it’s soaked bread.

Unlike small meatballs that are fried or poached in broth, these meatballs are simmered in sauce. Usually, though, they’re lightly browned first so they hold their shape better.

The meat grinder is an amazing invention. Its blades turn meat or fish into an even mince. I still remember the hand-cranked grinders of my childhood that were screwed onto the table. If the meat was tough and sinewy enough, you could easily rip the grinder off together with the tabletop. Modern food processors are another story: multifunctional electric appliances for processing food, with a huge number of attachments and gadgets. Of which only the meat grinder attachment gets used. I know from experience.

It so happened that some time ago we started buying pork for cooking very rarely. The doctors insisted. We started making most of our usual meat dishes with beef or veal. We had to tweak our home recipes a bit, but as it turned out, it was worth it. And in general, beef dishes turn out even tastier.

Here’s how we make beef meatballs, an almost everyday home-cooked dish. Next to it in this series: chicken meatballs with gravy.

Beef meatballs in tomato sauce are an almost everyday home-cooked dish. Quick enough to make and filling. A step-by-step recipe with photos.

Ingredients

2 servings

Lean beef 350 g
Cream or milk ¼ cup (50 ml)
Stale white bread 1 slice
Flour for dredging
Vegetable oil 3–4 tbsp
Salt, black pepper, ground coriander, nutmeg to taste

Tomato paste 2 tbsp (or 1½ cups tomato juice) (33 g)
Water 300 ml + ½ cup
Cream the rest, about 50 ml (or 2–3 tbsp sour cream)
Garlic 1 clove
Sugar 1–2 tsp (5–9 g)
Salt, black pepper, coriander to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Making the ground meat

Prepare the meat. Once the meat has thawed, remove the bones from the beef and, as far as possible, the tendons and membranes. It’s also best to trim off excess fat.
Any meaty cut will do for meatballs; shoulder or hindquarter is best. So-called “stew meat packs,” small pieces of meat that are apparently trimmings, have worked very well. They make good ground meat.
Grind the meat in an ordinary meat grinder, manual or electric. You can do it twice.

Season with salt and pepper: for meatballs that’s enough. But to my taste, I recommend adding 1–2 pinches of ground coriander and a pinch of ground nutmeg. Mix the meat with a fork so the spices are evenly distributed.
Add milk or cream to the ground meat. Not much: a quarter cup is enough.
Usually stale white bread soaked in milk is added to the meat. But it’s extremely hard to guess the right amount of milk and stale bread. Once, studying how chefs work, I noticed that they often say “add bread soaked in milk” but actually do something a bit different.
Dry the bread and grate it finely: these crumbs are galeta.
In many recipes for meat dishes you’ll come across the word galeta. It isn’t the cookie, which I love. From Italian galletta: dry (stale) bread ground into fine crumbs. It’s usually used for breading, but essentially it’s still bread, and it works great in ground meat. Unlike store-bought breadcrumbs, whose ingredients are anyone’s guess, crumbs made at home have a perfectly known origin.
At home we always buy a French baguette, a long fresh loaf that’s perfect for sandwiches or croutons. If you dry the baguette and grate it finely, you get excellent crumbs with no additives, fresh and fragrant.
Add the crumbs to the meat in small portions and mix. As soon as the meat stops sticking to the fork, you have enough crumbs. The mixture should have the consistency of soft pizza dough. The crumbs will soak up the cream very quickly.
If for some reason you don’t like this method, just add bread soaked in milk to the ground meat.

Shaping and browning

Wet a large plate with cold water. Wetting your hands with water, roll the prepared mixture into balls slightly larger than a walnut and place them on the wet plate.
Heat 3–4 tbsp of vegetable oil in a skillet. Roll the meatballs in flour. Note: in flour, not breadcrumbs. Put the meatballs in the hot oil and brown on all sides. It’s very convenient to simply stir them with a spatula.
Frying time is 3–4 minutes. Just enough for the beef balls to start browning slightly, very slightly.

Simmering in sauce

The main feature that sets meatballs apart from other similar dishes is the sauce. The meatballs are served in sauce, usually quite a lot of it. I once thought that beef meatballs in sauce are more like a thick meatball soup.

If you like, add one minced garlic clove. If you don’t like garlic, just skip this step. But, and this is important, the garlic shouldn’t fry much: add the tomato right away.
Prepare the tomato. You can make a good sauce from fresh tomatoes, like a classic homemade tomato sauce salsa di pomodoro. But that’s a fairly seasonal sauce. Out of season, there are two options. The first is to dilute 2 tbsp of tomato paste (33 g) in 300 ml of water. The second, simpler one is to take 1½ cups of good tomato juice (300 ml). Pour the tomato into the sauté pan with the meatballs. Add the remaining cream right away. However, experience has shown that 2–3 tbsp of sour cream (30–45 g) work fine instead of milk or cream.
Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. I recommend adding a pinch of coriander and 1–2 tsp of sugar (5–9 g). The sauce will be sweet and sour and very fragrant. Add a little water to the sauce, literally half a cup. Bring the sauce and meatballs to a boil, cover the sauté pan and simmer everything over the lowest heat for 20 minutes. That’s enough.
If after that time the sauce seems too thin, take off the lid, turn up the heat and reduce it a little. This usually takes up to 5 minutes.
The beef meatballs in sauce are ready.

Serving

As I said, beef meatballs should be served in their sauce. Put the meatballs in a suitable dish and pour the sauce over them. That’s really all.
We serve mashed potatoes as a side. It’s a great combination and quick to make. Nothing stops you from spooning out some couscous, pouring sauce over it and topping it with the beef meatballs. Or serve everything separately.

Calories and macros

755 kcal

Serving ≈ 330 g

Protein39 g21% of kcal
Fat59 g71% of kcal
Carbs15 g8% of kcal

100 g231 kcalProtein 11.8 gFat 18.2 gCarbs 4.7 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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To Get It Right

If the meatballs turn out tough

Tough meatballs have only one cause: too many crumbs went in. Add the crumbs in small portions and stop as soon as the meat no longer sticks to the fork. Milk or cream: a quarter cup.

No egg needed

Don’t add egg to the meatball mixture: the egg white is exactly what turns it rock-hard. Bulgarian kebapche are made with no “binders” at all, just meat, spices and water, kneaded very thoroughly.

Rice is up to you

A filler in meatballs isn’t a strict rule. I prefer just meat, with rice served separately as a side. I add rice or bulgur when I bake meatballs with tomato. For meatballs with rice in the mixture, see pork meatballs with rice in tomato sauce.

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Questions and answers

How long to simmer beef meatballs in sauce?

20 minutes over the lowest heat, covered, from the moment the sauce boils. Before that the meatballs are browned for 3–4 minutes, and if the sauce is a bit thin at the end, reduce it uncovered for up to 5 more minutes.

What’s the difference between tefteli and frikadelki?

Frikadelki (the word goes back to Italian frittatella, “fried”) are fried or poached in broth, while tefteli, meatballs like these, are simmered in sauce. They’re usually lightly browned first so they hold their shape better. Similar in spirit: Swedish meatballs made with beef.

Why do beef meatballs fall apart?

Usually because the mixture is too wet or the sauce boils too hard. The meatballs are only browned, then essentially poached in sauce over the lowest heat, so there’s nothing to make them fall apart. Roll them in flour and brown lightly, and they’ll hold their shape.

Can I make these meatballs with veal?

Yes, exactly the same way. We make most of our usual meat dishes with beef or veal. Use meat without bones, tendons or excess fat.

What to serve with beef meatballs?

Mashed potatoes, rice or couscous; at home we most often eat meatballs with couscous. You can pour sauce over the side and put the meatballs on top. Herbs are optional: no harm in trying.

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