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In Japan, it's pretty popular to make a "giant" version of whatever dish you want, whether it's flan cake, donuts, sushi, or even meatballs, you can always find gigantic versions of any dishes in any cookbooks or blogs. I used to love eating spaghetti and meatballs, so I decided to make up for the pasta by making some homemade meatballs and making them ginormous!
When I first made this dish, I originally cooked the meatballs in the marinara sauce without simmering down the sauce first and the whole thing ended up really watery so that's why I ended up making the sauce first while the meatballs were cooking and just putting it back in the oven to melt the cheese.
These end up really stuffing as they're pretty big so I had one meatball for my lunches this week accompanied with a small salad and that was more than enough. If you feel like making four meatballs is too much calories, then you are more than welcome to make 6 or 8.
Recipe Card
Keto Cheese-Stuffed Giant Meatballs
Ingredients
- 120 g mozzarella cheese (for stuffing)
- 100 g mozzarella cheese (for topping)
Meatballs
- ½ onion (about 50g)
- 3 cloves garlic
- 6-8 brown mushrooms (about 70g)
- 650 g ground pork
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley
- 1 tsp sage
- 1 tsp Himalayan salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp basil
- ¼ cup blanched almond flour (about 30g)
Tomato sauce
- 400 g crushed tomatoes (1 small can)
- ½ tsp parsley
- ½ tsp oregano
- ½ tsp basil
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ¼ tsp Himalayan salt
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp onion powder
- ½ cup water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.
- Thinly chop the onion and mushrooms. Mince the garlic. In a large bowl, combine all of the meatball ingredients and knead with your hands until well-combined.
- Separate the 120g of mozzarella cheese into 4 piles.
- Separate the meatball mixture into four (or 6, 8 depending on how big/small you want them). Take ¼ of the meatball mixture and separate into two. Take one half and cover with the ¼ of the cheese. Take the other half of the meatball mixture and put over the cheese. With your hands carefully form a big meatball, and throw the meatball from one hand to another a couple of times to release the air. Once formed, place in an oven proof dish. Repeat this with the remaining 3 meatballs.
- Once all of the meatballs are formed an in the oven-proof dish, bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Do not turn off the oven because we will use it again after.
- In a medium sauce pot, combine the tomato sauce ingredients and simmer on medium-heat for 10 minutes. The sauce needs to be pretty thick so make sure that it has considerably simmered down. *I tried making this dish without simmering the sauce down first and the meatballs ended up really watery so this step is important.
- Once the meatballs cooked 20 minutes, take the dish out of the oven, cover the meatballs with the tomato sauce and then sprinkle the 100g of mozzarella over everything. Place in the oven again and bake for an additional 10 minutes (or until the mozzarella has a nice golden brown crust).Take out of the oven and serve hot while the cheese is still gooey!!
Nutritional information is provided through calculations made on fatsecret.com. They are approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on mypcoskitchen.com. Sugar alcohols are included in the fiber count. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber (which include sugar alcohols).
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Pam
Can you recommend “serve with” suggestions that keep this meal Keto? Try to get my husband away from meat and potatoes.
Rebecka
Can you use regular flour for allergy reasons
Mira
Yes.
COLLEEN SAIPI
Yes, but try with no flour because it is just to help form meatballs so you can omit flour altogether. You can also use bread crumbs but watch the carbs.
Jessica
Hands down the best meatballs I've made! Thanks for the recipe.
mrskinnypants
Looks amazing, Mira! You had me at "Giant" meatballs :). I'm a big fan of simple...are there any ingredients that can be removed and this recipe still work OK? Maybe not as delish, but decent? Thanks! - ryan
Mira
Hi! If you want simple, I'd get rid of the onions and mushrooms, and maybe the almond flour (see if the meat is thick enough to form meatballs). Keep the spices for the meatballs and the sauce as that's just a must. 🙂