Keto Meatballs

I  recently discovered that my grandson is a meatball fan.  Okay, so these aren’t Olive Garden meatballs, but he and the rest of the family loved these! Mark enjoyed this appetizer on the patio before the rest of the fam arrived.

I mixed two pounds of ground beef, one pound of sausage, 3/4 cup of freshly grated parmasean cheese,three eggs, about a quarter cup of heavy cream, and about a tablespoon each of garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian seasonings all together with a mixer until just blended altogether.  I also added salt, about a teaspoon.  The parmasean is going to add salt, so I kept it to about a teaspoon.  Also, don’t overmix, it will make them tough.

I debated about adding crushed pork rinds, but I read that some people think they make for drier meatballs so I left those out.  These held together beautifully, I found they didn’t need anything else to bind the meat together.

This made 18 good-sized meatballs.  If you don’t need 18 meatballs, you could half the recipe or just freeze the extras.   I used an ice cream scoop to form them into balls and  fried them in batches of 6 in the air fryer, 400 degrees for 15 minutes. You could also bake them in the oven, pan fry in a skillet, and lots of people use their instant pots for theirs.  I elected the air fryer because I wanted a good browned crust with minimal effort.

The sauce we use is Rao’s marinara, Mark really likes their Arrabbiata because it’s spicy.  And of course, we added some mozzarella and parmasean to top it all off.  I suppose some people might miss pasta; but really, this version of meatballs with good sauce and cheese received rave reviews from our non-keto family even without the pasta. I can’t wait to make them again!