That’s a spicy (or not so spicy) meatball!

I’ve already done a couple of posts, here and here, about prep cooking. Here’s another favorite – meatballs!

Meatballs are incredibly flexible. You can make them with any sort of ground meat or meat substitute – beef, pork, turkey, and so forth. You can adjust the flavoring to suit the meat.

Our personal favorite is made with Italian sausage and ground beef. It goes well with marinara sauce and pasta or sliced up and added to pizza.

Meatballs

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound Italian sausage (spicy or regular)
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup of bread crumbs (I use panko style)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of milk
• salt and pepper to taste

I use a sheet pan with a lip. Cover it in foil to save with cleanup later. Put a cooling rack on the pan and spray it well with cooking spray.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Mix everything together and shape into balls. I use a scoop to get consistent sized meatballs so that they cook evenly. The scoop I use is a size 40 (see below for more info).

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the meatballs are cooked through.

This recipe makes about 36 meatballs with this size scoop. I divide it into 3 sets and freeze in a small container or zipper freezer bag. They stay good for about 3 months, though they rarely last that long!

Bacon

You can also cook bacon this way. Cook the bacon at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, turning it over halfway through. For best results, lay the bacon out in a single layer.

Digging Deeper – Cookie Scoops

There are a wide variety of sizes of scoops out there that can be very useful in the kitchen. I have a couple of different sizes. The number (called a disher size) is based on how many scoops you would get from a quart of ice cream.

I use them for things like meatballs or cookie dough to get consistent sizes for baking. They can also be used to put batter in muffin cups for the same reason.

This blog post does a great job of covering cookie scoops.