These juicy Greek Meatballs rock! A traditional recipe, beautifully flavoured with red onion, fresh parsley, a touch of mint and hint of dried oregano. These meatballs are slightly crisp on the outside and are brilliant served as an appetiser with tzatiki and pita bread as part of a mezze spread (very Greek!), or as a meal with a salad.
Monday Meatball Mania is here! The rules are simple and the logic powerful: my friend Jo from Jo Cooks and I both agree that meatballs are the King of all Ball Shaped Foods. There cannot be too many meatballs in this world.
So at the beginning of this year, we embarked upon a mission to make this world a better place by contributing even more meatballs.
So on the last Monday of every month, we each publish a meatball recipe. And that, my friends, is the only rule. Giant meatballs, mini meatballs, stuffed meatballs…..ahh, the possibilities are endless!
Today, I’ve kept it respectably “normal” with these Greek Meatballs. One day I’m going to shock you with an outrageous meatball creation…. just you wait!
These Greek Meatballs are a step up from the basic meatball recipe. Grated red onion provides a fabulous flavour base as well as making these meatballs gorgeously juicy. And the flavourings are from herbs – fresh parsley, a hint of mint (I really love this touch), and some dried oregano. Oh, and garlic of course. Wouldn’t be Greek if there wasn’t garlic in it! 🙂
Just pop all this in a bowl, then squidge away with your hands to mix it all together. To make them easier to roll and to maintain a nice round shape while pan frying, just pop the mixture in the fridge for an hour before rolling into balls.
Greek Meatballs are dusted lightly with flour before pan frying. This creates a lovely light crust, sort of like when you dust fish / chicken etc with flour before pan frying. I really love this touch, but it’s not essential, you could actually skip it.
Greek Meatballs are not made with a sauce, so I like to serve this with tzatziki so I’ve provided my recipe for that as well. But even if you don’t have cucumber, plain yoghurt will work well too. The meatballs are certainly juicy and flavoured enough to eat plain, but having a sauce definitely adds that extra something-something. 🙂
Serve a big bowl of these as a starter with pita bread to tear up and make “mini” wraps, like I do in the video. Or make a big Greek Meatballs dinner plate with a side of Greek Salad and pita bread – mmmmm!!! – Nagi xx
PS If you really want to go all out, serve this with Easy Soft No-Yeast Flatbreads!
PPS This past weekend I went camping and made Greek “Burritos” with these meatballs using Lemon Rice Pilaf, baby spinach and cheese. Rolled them up in foil and pan fried them to warm up and melt the cheese, then we dunked them in tzatziki. No washing up and lip smackingly delish – even the kids went nuts over them!
I Get A Round: More Meatball Recipes
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Italian Meatballs – An Italian-American classic, these meatballs are pillowy soft
Swedish Meatballs – With a savoury and creamy sauce, these are one of the world’s most iconic meatballs!
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Greek Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 red onion, grated
- 500g / 1 lb beef mince (ground beef) (or lamb!)
- 200g / 6.5oz pork mince (ground pork), or more beef
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 cup / 60g panko breadcrumbs (or use normal)
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
- 6 large mint leaves, finely chopped (spearmint if you can, it’s authentic)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3/4 tsp salt
- Black pepper
Cooking / Serving:
- 1/2 cup flour any white
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- Finely chopped parsley optional, for garnish
- Tzatziki (Note 5) or Greek yoghurt
Instructions
- Grate the onion straight into a large bowl, then add remaining Meatball ingredients. Use your hands to mix well for a few minutes until the mixture is quite smooth and very well combined.
- Optional: Refrigerate for 1 hour – makes them easier to roll + retains round shape when cooking.
- Measure out heaped tablespoons and dollop onto a work surface – should make around 32 – 35. Then roll into balls.
- Heat most of the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat (medium if you have a strong gas stove). Use enough oil to cover the surface of the skillet.
- Cook in 2 to 3 batches: Dredge meatballs lightly in flour, shaking off excess, then place in the skillet. Roll them around and cook for 5 – 6 minutes, until nicely browned all over. Remove onto plate, cover to keep warm and repeat with remaining meatballs.
- BAKING: Alternatively, spray generously with oil (preferably olive oil) then bake at 180C/350F for 20 minutes or until browned. The pan frying method is the traditional way and the meatballs are slightly juicier.
- Serve as a starter as part of a mezze platter with pita bread and tzatziki, or make dinner plates by adding a salad like a Greek Salad!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
Greek Meatballs recipe video!
LIFE OF DOZER
Took Dozer camping the weekend! He really needs to learn camping etiquette – i.e. no running around the campsite like a lunatic, shoving his furry face and breathing his stinky breath into every tent at 6 am in the morning. 😣 Lucky it was a private campsite so it was just my friends and I. ❤️
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Oh Nagi! You are right up my alley! I just noticed that the spearmint is coming up outside my door and wondering what I could add it to. Can’t wait to try these meatballs! If I didn’t already have pork chops thawed, I’d be making them tonight. Thanks for the delicious looking recipe.
Oooh! I’m so jealous! They didn’t have any at the supermarket 🙂
Use dried spearmint (1/2 tsp). It is one of those odd herbs that age quite well.
I bought a bag of Moroccan mint tea (Numi brand) about 5 years ago and it is still intensely
minty. I use it for tabbouleh, tea and Greek recipes on a regular basis and when I open the bag it is still
pretty much pristine (unlike, say, parsley- which is worthless the day you dry it).
Great recipe and idea for camp food- I’d usually use lamb and add about 1/8 tsp cinnamon and
allspice.
Ooh that’s a good tip Greg, I will grab some!
My young grandsons are visiting in a couple of weeks….I’m definitely making these for them and ME…..Thanks
They will LOVE them!!! 🙂 N xx
Hi Nagi, being Greek myself , your meatballs are spot on exactly how my mum makes them.
We normally split the receipe into 2 and add feta squares to half the mixture (centre of the meatball) the kiddies and adults love them.
A quick tip – if on the off chance you have any left over meatballs – we make a red tomato bolgonaise sauce and add the meatballs to the sauce on low heat for approx half and hour. The meatballs soften and absorb the sauce, the sauce will thicken. You can then serve it with spaghetti and crumble extra Greek feta on top. Enjoy.
Nagi do you have a good old fashion salmon rissole receipe you can share?
AWWW!!! I LOVE HEARING THAT NIKKI! Thank you so much for sharing the feta tip, I did actually have feta and was thinking about adding it but then I thought I’d stick with the traditional 🙂 And YES to making Greek bolognese! I do have rissole recipes, I’ll pop them on my list of things to share! I might do one big post on Rissoles and share all my faves. 🙂
HI Nagi, Love the meatball recipe. Where is the feta dip recipe from Nikki. Would love this as well !!
Hmm, let me have a look!
Hi Nagi, Thank you so much for the fantastic idea of how you make the meatball balls. It’s easier and faster. I will start doing it like that.
It looks messy but it’s definitely faster!!! The time it takes to roll them is what always used to put me off making meatballs more often 🙂 Hope you had a fantastic weekend Carlos! N xx
I love keftedes and always order them at the Greek restaurant. I’ve made them exactly ONCE. Time to try your recipe because I really love them.
I hope you try them! The Greek food blog I got the recipe from is super 🙂
Hi Nagi. I totally forgot that today is meatball Monday, but I was already planning on making Asian meatballs tonight along with sugar snap peas and rice. These Greek meatballs sound delicious and I would go for nice soft pita bread and a big Greek salad. I even have fresh spearmint growing in my side garden.
Where subconsciously in food-sync, thousands of miles apart! 🙂 N xx