I had a craving for some meatballs and hadn’t made any since the Bacon and Cheddar BBQ meatballs, so I decided to put together some new recipes to help all of you with some new ideas in the kitchen!
I made a trio of meatballs that turned out absolutely superb. These Italian Sausage, Ground Beef, and Pepperjack Cheese meatballs. Chorizo, Ground Beef, and Cheddar meatballs. Bacon, Ground Beef, and Mozzarella meatballs. The three together were fantastic, had a very appealing presentation, and were extremely filling.
You only need 2-4 meatballs to serve as a meal, especially with the sauce and a side of vegetables. Keep in mind that they’re quite large compared to the other types. They’re relatively easy to make, and they taste phenomenal. If you’re ever in a bind for a meal that needs to feed a lot of people, this can be a go-to. It takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes for the total time, start to finish, most of that being the actual cooking time.
If you want these to be even better, you can make a homemade sauce for each. Tomato sauce, pesto sauce, and Alfredo sauce. They’re pretty simple to make, and you can make them while the meatballs are cooking. I got lazy and only made the Alfredo sauce myself – but if you have a lot of guests over and want to serve something homemade and elegant, I say you should go the whole nine yards!
Yields 11 large meatballs.
The Preparation
- 1 ½ pounds ground beef
- 1 ½ links hot Italian sausages
- 1 cup alfredo sauce
- 1/3 cup crushed pork rinds
- 5 slices pepper jack cheese
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
The Execution
1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. Add your pork rinds (about 1/3 of a bag) to the food processor.
3. Pulse the pork rinds until they are crushed completely. We will be using these to bind the meatballs together.
4. Break apart your Italian sausage, making sure every piece is small. Sausage normally has some fat connecting together inside, so you want to tear through that so the mixture will be even.
5. Place your Italian sausage in a large mixing bowl.
6. Add your ground beef to the mixture. Don’t touch it just yet.
7. Add your crushed pork rinds on top of the ground beef.
8. If you’re using cheese slices then tear each one into quarters. For each of those quarters, quarter them again like below. If you’re using a wedge of cheese, cut 3/4 inch cubes out of it to use in the middle of each meatball.
9. Measure out your oregano, Italian seasoning, salt and eggs. Add them to the ground beef mixture – this is where the fun begins.
10. Mix everything together well using your hands. This is going to get messy, but it’s fine.
11. Grab about 2/3 the meat you want per meatball and form a semi circle with it. Place your cheese stack in the middle.
12. Add the rest of your meat to the top and form into a ball, making sure all of it is sealed off.
13. Place your meatballs into a baking tray. Some grease and cheese will seep out of the meatballs so spread them apart a little bit, as you don’t want them to get stuck together.
14. Cook them in the oven for 45-50 minutes. It may need longer if you made larger meatballs.
15. Let them cool for 5 minutes or so, and remove them from the grease filled tray.
16. Serve with Alfredo sauce on each!
For each meatball, it comes out to: 367.91 Calories, 32.23g Fats, 1.05g Carbs, and 16.92g Protein.
| Italian Sausage & Pepperjack Meatballs | Calories | Fats(g) | Carbs(g) | Fiber(g) | Net Carbs(g) | Protein(g) |
| 1 ½ pounds ground beef | 2251 | 203.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 97.29 |
| 1 ½ links (169.5 g) hot Italian sausages | 586 | 53.1 | 1.1 | 0 | 1.1 | 24.15 |
| 1 cup alfredo sauce | 440 | 40 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 8 |
| 1/3 cup crushed pork rinds | 95 | 5.93 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9.49 |
| 5 slices pepper jack cheese | 522 | 42.39 | 0.95 | 0 | 0.95 | 34.27 |
| 2 large eggs | 143 | 9.51 | 0.72 | 0 | 0.72 | 12.56 |
| 1 teaspoon oregano | 5 | 0.08 | 1.24 | 0.8 | 0.44 | 0.16 |
| 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning | 5 | 0.08 | 1.24 | 0.8 | 0.44 | 0.16 |
| Totals | 4047 | 354.49 | 13.25 | 1.6 | 11.65 | 186.08 |
| Per Serving(/11) | 367.91 | 32.23 | 1.2 | 0.15 | 1.05 | 16.92 |
For each meatball, it comes out to: 367.91 Calories, 32.23g Fats, 1.05g Carbs, and 16.92g Protein.
The Preparation
- 1 ½ pounds ground beef
- 1 ½ links hot Italian sausages
- 1 cup alfredo sauce
- 1/3 cup crushed pork rinds
- 5 slices pepper jack cheese
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
The Execution
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Break up sausage into small pieces so that it will mix well with the ground beef.
- Add your ground beef, ground pork rinds, spices, and eggs to the sausage.
- Mix everything together well until you can form meatballs.
- Grab 2/3 the amount of meat you want for each meatball and form it into a semi circle.
- Put your pepperjack in the middle and top it with some the rest of the ground beef to seal it up.
- Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes depending on their size. The smaller they are, the less time they need to cook.
- Spoon alfredo sauce over the meatballs and serve.
