Baking Italian Meatballs

Baking Italian meatballs yourself is a wonderful idea, particularly if you are interested in saving a bit of money. By making your own meatballs you can easily use them as a central ingredient in a variety of meals, and all you need to do is make the choice of which one you will have. Just follow this recipe for some outstanding Italian style meatballs everyone in your family will enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds ground beef (your choice lean percentage)
• 4 cloves garlic, freshly minced
• 1 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
• 2/3 cup fresh chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup plain, unseasoned tomato sauce
• 2 teaspoons mustard powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Recipe:

1. Preheat the oven. Set the temperature on your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and allow it to warm up. By preheating the oven like this you will have the oven nice and hot, ready for you to use it when you need it.
2. Prepare broiling pan. Grab a broiling pan, nonstick cooking spray, and some aluminum foil. Cover the bottom of the pan with some aluminum, and then spray the aluminum foil with the cooking spray. The aluminum foil will allow for easier clean up, and the cooking spray will help prevent the meatballs from burning and sticking to the foil.
3. Mix ingredients. Using a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients. There's no particular order to which ingredients needs to be added first, but you do need to make sure that all the ingredients are combined. Since this can be a little nasty, you may want to wear some gloves.
4. Create meatballs. An easy way to make the meatball is to use a 1-1/2 inch diameter scoop, or to simply remove enough meat to make a ball that same size. As you finish making each meatball set it aside on the broiler pan. You should have enough meat mixture to make about 60 meatballs.
5. Bake. When you have the broiler pan ready, place it into your preheated oven and bake it. You should only need to leave it in for 15 to 20 minutes, though you can remove it earlier as long as the meat is cooked all the way through.

When you are finished baking the meatballs you have several choices. The first choice is to serve the meatballs along with some spaghetti sauce and pasta (which is a traditional favorite). Another choice is to combine the meatballs with your favorite marinara sauce, and place them on a hoagie roll making a very simple meatball sub sandwich. You can also eat the meatballs by themselves (a little boring yes, but still very tasty). Or you can simply store the 60 meatballs (or whatever you don't use right away) for later use. No matter what you choose, enjoy!