Greek Meatballs (Keftedes) Recipe

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★★★★★ 5.0 (40)

These juicy Greek Meatballs rock! A conventional recipe, superbly flavoured with pink onion, contemporary parsley, a contact of mint and trace of dried oregano. These meatballs are barely crisp on the surface and are good served as an appetiser with tzatiki and pita bread as a part of a mezze unfold (very Greek!), or as a meal with a salad.

Soft, juicy, beautifully flavoured GREEK MEATBALLS! Serve as an appetiser with tzatziki, main with Greek Salad or make wraps! www.recipetineats.com

Monday Meatball Mania is right here! The foundations are easy and the logic highly effective: my pal Jo from Jo Cooks and I each agree that meatballs are the King of all Ball Formed Meals. There can’t be too many meatballs on this world.

So in the beginning of this 12 months, we embarked upon a mission to make this world a greater place by contributing much more meatballs.

So on the final Monday of each month, we every publish a meatball recipe. And that, my mates, is the one rule. Big meatballs, mini meatballs, stuffed meatballs…..ahh, the probabilities are infinite!

At the moment, I’ve saved it respectably “regular” with these Greek Meatballs. In the future I’m going to shock you with an outrageous meatball creation…. simply you wait!

Soft, juicy, beautifully flavoured GREEK MEATBALLS! Serve as an appetiser with tzatziki, main with Greek Salad or make wraps! www.recipetineats.com

These Greek Meatballs are a step up from the fundamental meatball recipe. Grated pink onion offers a wonderful flavour base in addition to making these meatballs gorgeously juicy. And the flavourings are from herbs – contemporary parsley, a touch of mint (I actually love this contact), and a few dried oregano. Oh, and garlic after all. Wouldn’t be Greek if there wasn’t garlic in it! 🙂

Simply pop all this in a bowl, then squidge away along with your fingers to combine all of it collectively. To make them simpler to roll and to take care of a pleasant spherical form whereas pan frying, simply pop the combination within the fridge for an hour earlier than rolling into balls.

Soft, juicy, beautifully flavoured GREEK MEATBALLS! Serve as an appetiser with tzatziki, main with Greek Salad or make wraps! www.recipetineats.com

Greek Meatballs are dusted calmly with flour earlier than pan frying. This creates a stunning gentle crust, kind of like while you mud fish / chicken and so forth with flour earlier than pan frying. I actually love this contact, however it’s not important, you would truly skip it.

Greek Meatballs usually are not made with a sauce, so I prefer to serve this with tzatziki so I’ve offered my recipe for that as properly. However even when you don’t have cucumber, plain yoghurt will work properly too. The meatballs are definitely juicy and flavoured sufficient to eat plain, however having a sauce undoubtedly provides that further something-something. 🙂

PS Should you actually need to go all out, serve this with Simple Comfortable No-Yeast Flatbreads!

PPS This previous weekend I went tenting and made Greek “Burritos” with these meatballs utilizing Lemon Rice Pilaf, child spinach and cheese. Rolled them up in foil and pan fried them to heat up and soften the cheese, then we dunked them in tzatziki. No washing up and lip smackingly delish – even the children went nuts over them!

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Soft, juicy, beautifully flavoured GREEK MEATBALLS! Serve as an appetiser with tzatziki, main with Greek Salad or make wraps! www.recipetineats.com

Greek Meatballs (Keftedes) Recipe

Greek Meatballs (Keftedes) Recipe

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Serves: 5 Prep Time: Cooking Time:
Nutrition facts: 513 calories 20 grams fat
Rating: 5.0/5
( 1 voted )

Ingredients

  • 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
  • 1/2 cup flour any white
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • Finely chopped parsley optional, for garnish
  • Tzatziki (Note 5) or Greek yoghurt

Instructions

  1. 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.
  2. Optional: Refrigerate for 1 hour – makes them easier to roll + retains round shape when cooking.
  3. Measure out heaped tablespoons and dollop onto a work surface – should make around 32 – 35. Then roll into balls.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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!

Notes

1. These freeze extremely well, and when reheated they are still nice and bouncy i.e. juicy!
2. Standby meal / camping: Another serving suggestion is to make “burritos”! Ideal because the meatballs stay nice and juicy. I used large tortillas / flatbreads, and stuffed them with Lemon Rice Pilaf, these Greek Meatballs, cheese and baby spinach. Rolled up tightly, wrapped in foil then frozen them. To serve, defrost then either bake or cook over low heat for 8 minutes, turning regularly, until crispy on the outside (do this in the foil). Then serve with tzatziki to dunk them in! I went camping this past weekend and this is what I took for one of the meals – fantastic because there’s no washing up.
3. A wonderful authentic recipe from My Greek Dish food blog. I only very slightly adapted it – e.g. used normal mint instead of spearmint, reduced oil in mixture to 1 tbsp and used panko  instead of normal breadcrumbs because they make slightly softer meatballs.
4. See notes above the nutrition table for commentary on the nutrition and how to reduce the calories.
5. Tzatziki: 2 Lebanese cucumbers (grated with juice squeezed out), 1¼ cups / 300g plain Greek yoghurt, 2 tsp white wine vinegar (or red wine or apple cider vinegar), 1 tbsp lemon juice, ½ garlic clove, minced, 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, ½ tsp salt, Black pepper. Mix ingredients and set aside 30 min.
It’s also terrific just served with plain yoghurt. You could doll up the yoghurt a bit with a squeeze of lemon + olive oil + salt & pepper + garlic. However, these meatballs are juicy enough to even eat plain, freshly cooked.
6. Greek Meatballs nutrition per serving, meatballs only. I took a conservative position on the amount of fat left in the skillet that is discarded so the actual calories are under 500 calories a serving. Also if you use lean beef and pork, that will reduce the calories further. You could also cut out the olive oil in the meatball mixture to reduce it even further.

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Sarah Miller
Sarah Miller

Hi, I’m Sarah Millar!
I’m a food blogger who loves creating quick and easy recipes that bring big flavor without the fuss. Cooking doesn’t have to be complicated — and I’m here to share simple, fast food ideas that anyone can make at home. When I’m not in the kitchen, you’ll usually find me tasting new dishes, exploring cafés, or coming up with fresh food hacks to make everyday meals more fun.

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