How to Make Ricotta Meatballs

How to Make Ricotta Meatballs Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Ricotta Meatballs. That’s right, ricotta, spiked beef meatballs. So tender, so flavorful, so delicious. And here’s how you make them. It’s super, simply, hardly any ingredients. So I took a half of onion and I minced it up pretty small in a little bit of olive oil over medium heat in a sauté pan, you’re just going to cook those, sweat those until they’re translucent or just about. Then I put in some crashed garlic about three cloves that depends on your garlic love or you easily put more. Alright, turn off the heat, there’s plenty of heat in that pan and those onions to take the raw edge off the garlic. I'm going to put those in a mixing ball and I’m going to add one egg and make sure all these ingredients here you’re going to see me add here are really cold. So one egg right out of the fridge, a cup of full fat ricotta, no skim ricotta, regular ricotta the best ricotta you can get one cup of that and you’re going to whisk that in. The reason I want that really cold is because in the end it’s still kind of warm. And when you make meatballs, the colder you’re mixture is the better. Alright, we’re going to put in some seasoning. A teaspoon and a half of kosher salt, black pepper to taste a lot, about a half of teaspoon and a shake of cayenne and I’m going to add one pound of ground beef. Now, here’s where you will probably going to have an advantage. I’m using the grass feed ground beef that I get in the supermarket. It’s really ground fine. I wish it wasn’t ground so fine. If you are using regular supermarket ground beef, it’s probably going to be even in a better texture. So dump that in, put about a quarter cup packed of fresh chopped parsley. In fact, I have even a little more there but I like parsley. Mix that in until it’s just about mix, see that? It’s not quite mixed. It’s about 64% mixed then I’m going to go ahead and add in my plain bread cramps and I'm going to mix it up until it’s combined. Now, usually when you’re making meatballs, meatloaf and things like that, people are so worried about over mixing and yes, you don’t want to over mix on purpose. But because it has ricotta cheese in this, they come up pretty tender so don’t worry too much about over mixing. So once it comes together, I’m going to use a little sorbet scoop here because that makes nice consistent size meatballs. Wet your fingers, you know the trick I’ve showed you that before. Wet your fingers, roll them into balls. So this one pound beef batch with the cup of ricotta, it’s going to make about 30, 32 of these little meatballs. In the same pan, you cooked your onions in add a couple of tablespoons olive oil and brown those on all sides. And by the way, the person that sent me the email told me that, balls don’t have sides. Come on, you must have something better to do. I know balls don’t have sides but you know what I mean, brown them on all sides. Oh, I’m sorry, brown them on all surfaces. Then I’m going to take a piece of paper towel. You’ve seen me do this in many videos, tilt the pan, let the towel soak of all the excess oil. And then to finish, it’s so simple. I’m going to add one jar of 28 ounces of tomato sauce and one cup of water. The reason I used Barilla marinara, it’s my personal favorite brand. Attention FCC I was not a paid for that comment. And then simply simmer for 30 minutes on medium low, and you’re going to have some really delicious meatballs. Go ahead and give them a stir every one’s in a while, like I said, the cheese really makes them moist and tender, just really, really nice, so basic too. If you want to put more stuff in there, put more stuff but I didn’t mess it up with the bunch of extra ingredients. It’s just simple, basic food. Anyway, I hope you give those a try. I really like this recipe. Of course, you can throw more over some spaghetti because we’re Americans and that’s what we do with meatballs. I’m sorry Italians they don’t mix their pasta meatballs. Why? I don’t know. Do you think they would? You know, catch on to how good it is. Anyway, go and check out the site, all the ingredients are there and as always, enjoy.