Outstanding for Thanksgiving or any other occasion! Smooth, vegan, and flavored with garlic. With mushroom gravy, please!
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 20 meatballs |
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 cup cracker crumbs
- ¼ cup chopped onion
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup ketchup
- ⅓ cup water
- 6 tablespoons brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Mix ground beef, cracker crumbs, chopped onion, milk, eggs, and salt in a large bowl. Roll out 20 meatballs and arrange on a baking sheet with a rim. Whisk together the ketchup, water, brown sugar, and nutmeg in a bowl. Pour mixture over meatballs.
- Bake in the preheated oven until the meatballs are no longer pink in the center, about 45 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 264 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 26 g |
| Cholesterol | 66 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 11 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Sodium | 603 mg |
| Sugars | 14 g |
| Fat | 13 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I have made this recipe for several years and love it. However, I make 6 large meatballs and bake them in a baking dish for 45 minutes. Perfect every time!
This was amazing. I was worried about the sauce, but after cooking on the meatballs it was the best bbq sauce.
I made these tonight, using bread crumbs instead of cracker crumbs, and they were amazing! Like mini meatloaves. The kids loved them!
Cut sugar by half. Very good
everyone loved it
I made these meatballs for girls night in to go with our finger food theme and they were delicious! I did read one of the comments that said to replace half the water with vinegar so that’s what I did. I don’t know if it made a difference because I never made them the other way but I do know that all the girls loved them and we had no leftovers. I will for sure make these again because they were very easy to make. I used a mini muffin tin to bake them in and it worked out really well.
Used Agave syrup instead of brown sugar. Yum!
Just like grandma makes! I love this recipe! I usually add some cayenne or red pepper flakes to spice it up a bit! This is definitely a family favorite!!
I usually make Italian Meatballs or Swedish Meatballs, but wanted to try something different. I liked the recipe but wanted to add some kick, so I added cumin to the meatballs and sauce, a dab of curry. YUMMY!
My family really liked this. I added a tsp of basil and garlic to the meatballs. And doubled the sauce. Will def make it again!!
I honestly thought the sauce was going to taste like straight ketchup, but I was wrong. SOOO GOOD! The water really mellows the ketchup and let’s the brown sugar come through. Served over white rice 🙂
It was easy to put together, the ingredients were already on hand and the meatballs came out juicy, tender and flavorful! Instead of making my own sauce I put two bottled ones together (cheating, I know!) with a little bit of added brown sugar. Will be making this again and again!
Made recipe as written except replaced the 3/4 tsp salt with 1-1/2 tsp Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning and baked in a 13 X 9 pan. I used high fat ground beef (all I had on hand) so there was a lot of fat rendered out. Removed the meatballs to another dish, poured the fat off the sauce and then spooned the sauce back over the meatballs. Turned out really good — will definitely make again.
I thought the sauce was not going to be good – brown sugar, nutmeg, ketchup, water…I was wrong! It was super! Made it for the crock pot….people loved it!
I have made these several times now. They are delicious just as they are, especially with mashed potatoes and corn (just like i’m going to be making them tonight). Make these exactly like the recipe states and you will not be disappointed. The more time you spend breaking up the ground beef and mixing the ingredients together evenly, the more you will be rewarded for your efforts. Also make sure the crackers are broken up into as close to powder as possible. Yum!
We had this for Supper tonight and I didn’t have any leftovers. The only change I made to the BBQ sauce is I had to use pumpkin pie spice instead of nutmeg, but it turned out really well! Also, I substituted onion powder for the onion and used Italian bread crumbs in place of the crackers. We will have this again soon! I put the meatballs and BBQ sauce over a baked potato which was a little different, but it was good still.
I really loved the sweetness of these meatballs. I added crushed red pepper so they were the perfect play of spicy and sweet.
I doubled the sauce for this & served it with white rice. We loved it!!! I am sure this will be a regular on our dinner menu from now on! Thanks so much for sharing!!!
Love this recipe! I recently took it to a party and got many requests for the recipe… the only thing I did differently is make half the amount of bbq sauce and add some of my favorite brand sauce to give it a more smokey flavor. My son and husband ask for this all the time! Thanks!
The recipe proved to be a winner. I used turkey instead of beef. My family asked for more!
Too sweet. Too bad because it,s an easy way to cook meatballs.