Beef and Mushroom Meatballs

Mushrooms?! If I went back in time and told my younger self that I would be eating onions and mushrooms later in life, my younger self would laugh in my face. These beef and mushroom meatballs were a happy accident. On one of our pasta nights, I noticed we had extra cremini mushrooms to use, so I added them to my meatball mixture. They worked really well with the meatballs!

Fatima is not the biggest mushroom fan, but I decided to finely chop these mushrooms and sneak them into the meatballs. I’ve done this twice since making these meatballs and she still hasn’t noticed. Shhh! I made these meatballs with pasta and with our garlic lime brussel sprouts.

What I love about cremini mushrooms is they don’t have that overwhelming ‘mushroom’ taste that other mushrooms carry. They taste fresh and add a subtle hint of mushroom to your dish. Another meal I love with cremini mushrooms? Steak and cheese grinders.

For a long time, we’ve been using turkey meat as the base in our meatballs. However, we fell in love (again) with beef meatballs when we made these gyros. Maybe it was beef drought we were in, but these meatballs tasted so good. Since then, I’ve been using beef.

Like our failed turkey meatball experiment, make sure your ground beef is 80-85% lean. A lean beef as high as/higher than 90% may lead to very tough meatballs. The fat helps with flavor and moisture.

[recipe title=”Beef and Mushroom Meatballs” servings=”6-8″ time=”30mins” difficulty=”easy” image=”https://liliesandloafers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IMG_0615-2.jpg”] [recipe-notes]

Author: Lilies and Loafers

[/recipe-notes] [recipe-ingredients]

• 1.1 lbs of beef (80-85% lean)
• 1 cup cremini mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1 cup of breadcrumbs
• 1 small sweet onion, chopped
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder

[/recipe-ingredients] [recipe-directions]

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
3. Using your hand (see #4 below for a tip) or a large cookie dough scoop, roll up the meat and place on an aluminum foil-lined cookie sheet. I get about 16-18 large meatballs.
4. My uncle taught me that if you oil your hands with olive oil before you roll the meatballs, they are easier to remove from the pan. They also get that delicious golden brown look.
5. Place the cookie sheet in the oven and cook for about 10-15 minutes or until the outsides are golden brown and the pink on the inside disappears.
6. Drop them into your sauce or plate and cover with sauce. Try my mom’s homemade sweet Italian sausage sauce!

[/recipe-directions] [/recipe]

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Do you love our goldware pictured above? You can find these gold stainless steel forks and other utensils at Target!