Our 34 Best Meatball Recipes

The secret to these luscious meatballs is using ground beef that has a fairly high fat content and mixing it with fresh ricotta, milk-soaked bread and aromatic seasonings like fennel and lemon zest.

These meatballs are served in a bowl, but they are equally delicious with spaghetti or on a hoagie roll.

Milk-and-cream-soaked breadcrumbs and an egg are the secrets to these supertender meatballs from Swedish star chef Magnus Nilsson. Serve them as he does, with lingonberry jam and mashed potatoes.

These superquick, juicy little Asian-inspired meatballs from F&W’s Justin Chapple are great wrapped in lettuce cups or served with steamed rice.

When Jacques Pépin has leftover cooked meat from a roast or a stew, or even leftover steak, he often chops it and uses it to make these boulettes (“small balls”)—a staple in every French housewife’s cooking repertoire.

Mint, cumin, and chopped almonds give these delicious meatballs their Middle Eastern flavor.

According to Southern tradition, the hostess at a ladies’ luncheon should serve little meatballs in a chafing dish or on a platter with toothpicks as a satisfying snack for any men in attendance.

One serving has just 290 calories and 10.4 grams of total fat.

There’s something to be said for eating one giant meatball atop a simple plate of spaghetti.

Grace Parisi replaces long-simmered beef with meatballs made from a quick mix of sirloin, egg, bread crumbs and cheese in this hearty soup.

Spaghetti and meatballs is a crowd-pleasing classic Italian-American dish. The mixture of beef, veal and pork makes the meatballs really flavorful.

To spice these kid-friendly meatballs up for grown-ups, Katie Workman adds hot turkey sausage and crushed red pepper.

In Sweden, making meatballs is a very social family affair. The more kids you can round up the better, since a child's palm makes the perfect-size ball. Here, Fredrika Stjärne uses her father’s recipe, with his secret ingredient (celery salt).

Pass crisp lettuce leaves and tangy yogurt with these cumin-spiced patties and assemble them at the table.

Jennifer Joyce gives chicken meatballs a heavenly sticky glaze by rolling them in sugar before baking.

When these meatballs are almost cooked through, Nancy Silverton pushes them to one side of the skillet and adds the chickpeas so everything soaks up the luscious roasted red-pepper sauce.

Milk-soaked bread helps make chef Massimiliano Alajmo’s beef-and-pork meatballs incredibly light; bits of chopped olive make them extra-flavorful. The thick tomato sauce coats the meatballs nicely and doubles as an excellent pasta sauce.

In her cookbook Scandilicious, Signe Johansen shares her unusual cocoa-sauced meatball recipe.

These tender, oversize pork-and-beef meatballs are stuffed into a warm hero roll with melted provolone cheese and topped with Matt Neal’s own chunky tomato sauce. As a shortcut, feel free to substitute six cups of jarred sauce.

A die-hard Sopranos fan, chef Ruggero Gadaldi says that the TV show inspires many of his hearty Italian dishes, including these polpette (meatballs).

On the skewer, alternate these super-flavorful meatballs with basil leaves and cherry tomatoes.

This standout tapa, Albóndigas de Cordero a la Hierbabuena, combines two classics—lamb and mint.

Serve the meatball-packed wraps with lots of hot sauce and lime wedges.

Eugenia Bone serves her meatballs with rice instead of pasta to soak up the fantastic marinara sauce.

With its blend of chicken stock and vitamin-C-rich, this restorative soup (inspired by the classic Greek lemon-egg soup avgolemono) is a good way to fight colds or the flu.

Some cooks are surprised when Grace Parisi tells them she mixes pesto into meatballs to add flavor quickly. If you’re pressed for time, good store-bought pesto works too.

This classic Caesar salad is incredibly good with the juicy meatballs David Burke serves in place of the usual croutons.

Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson makes his savory meatballs with a mixture of lamb, veal and bacon and, surprisingly, a little ricotta cheese to keep everything moist.

Turkey is not only a soporific but a source of iron, zinc, potassium and B vitamins.

Sylvan Mishima Brackett makes these meatballs, known as tsukune, with hand-chopped meat and skin from the best pastured chicken he can get.

Fried meatballs are a Florentine specialty; this version can be made with any cooked meat, from roast or boiled beef to chicken and pork.

Rich pork broth—made with pork butt and smoked ham—brings together this comforting stew from brothers Andrew and Eric Dayton’s restaurant The Bachelor Farmer in Minneapolis.

These Spanish-style meatballs are prepared with a quick béchamel, which makes them wonderfully moist and tender. They’re cooked in a deeply flavorful tomato-based sauce made with wine and brandy, then topped with crisp mushrooms.

The combination of lemongrass, a few dashes of fish sauce and tons of fresh herbs creates a salty brightness to crave year-round.