Easy Keto Meatballs
Easy keto meatballs you can make ahead and keep in the freezer for fast dinners on busy nights! Or use them for easy meal prep meals throughout the week!! Only 2g net carbs per serving!!
Easy Keto Meatballs
These are my Easy Keto Meatballs that you can make in a large batch and freeze to use in later meals, or use them for your weekly meal prep. This recipe came about because one of the hardest parts of eating keto for me is the constant having to make meals from scratch. Because my family does not eat keto, I usually end up making the family meal first, and then run out of steam (and energy, and motivation) to make a second meal for myself.
So I like to have easy keto freezer meals that I can pull out for my meals, that don’t require a lot of extra cooking. Sometimes it is just a pre-cooked protein, that I can then pair with a sauce or use in a salad.
I’ve posted recently about my favorite gluten-free freezer meatballs, and they have worked out so well, I decided to make a keto version of them just for me!
They are tender and juicy and full of flavor!
My favorite way to eat them is baked in a casserole dish, covered with a bit of keto-approved spaghetti or marinara sauce, and smothered in a whole heck of a lot of cheese that is then broiled to bring out a nice golden brown crust!
I keep bags of these easy baked meatballs in my freezer and they are SO incredibly handy!
And best of all, my family will eat these no questions asked. In some ways they like these even better than our normal gluten-free meatballs (which are already fabulous), but I do have to draw the line somewhere and keep some just for myself so I don’t go hungry. 😉
The Ground Beef
I prefer to use 80/20 lean ground beef here – I feel like it’s a nice balance with enough fat to keep things juicy and flavorful without having the meatballs get too dry.
I have tried leaner ground beef before, and it tends to make for drier, tougher meatballs. Since we’re aiming for keto meatballs here, there’s no need to shy away from the fat.
But on the other hand, if you get too much fat in there, then you have meatballs that fall apart and drown in a puddles of grease. No bueno.
You could absolutely ramp these up a notch and walk on the wild side by going with a half-ground-beef/half-ground-pork mixture, and I think you’d really be on to something. But for this one, I wanted to just keep things simple and stick with plain ground beef.
The Preparation
Just like with my Easy Baked Freezer Meatballs, you really want to use a scoop for these!
Not only does it speed up making the meatballs, it also makes them all uniform which makes for more even cooking.
There’s nothing more frustrating than a tray of meatballs where a couple are cooked through but then you find the rest are either over- or under-cooked! Grrr…
So don’t do that.
Take a few minutes, and invest a few dollars into a good quality scoop. You will find you use it for SO many things! I use a medium cookie scoop, usually marked as a a #30 or #40 scoop (they are very close in size, so either will work).
For specific recommendations on the scoops I love and use in my kitchen, see my post HERE.
And don’t forget to use a silicone baking mat with these – it makes getting them off the tray so much easier, and clean up is a breeze!
Especially important since these meatballs use cheese as one of the binders, and it will tend to melt out of the meatball while baking.
Freezing and Reheating Your Easy Keto Meatballs
I generally let the meatballs cool a bit after coming out of the oven, and then scoop them into a gallon ziptop freezer bag that I have labeled. Then into the freezer they go.
You can flash freeze them if you’d like – just let your tray of keto meatballs cool, and then stick the entire thing, meatballs, tray and all, into the freezer for a couple hours until the meatballs have frozen solid.
Then remove the tray and meatballs from the freezer, transfer the frozen meatballs into your freezer bag or container of choice, and place them back into the freezer until needed.
Your best reheating method will really depend on how you intend to use them. Since I often eat these as my main entree, I pull a bag of frozen keto meatballs out of the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge overnight.
Then I place the thawed meatballs into a baking dish, cover with a big of keto-approved spaghetti or marinara sauce, top with cheese, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes, then place under the broiler for an additional five minutes to get the cheese all nice and bubbly and brown.
Having pre-made frozen meatballs that are low-carb and keto-approved has been such a game changer on nights when I’m tired, or things are busy, or I’m struggling to stay on track. And these easy keto meatballs work great for meal prep, too! Make up a batch and put them in meal prep containers with your favorite sauce and some zoodles or low-carb noodles and you’ve got nearly instant gratification for lunch or dinner throughout the week! Or heck, eat them all as snacks throughout the day – I won’t judge!
Simple keto meatballs you can make in advance and freeze to keep on hand for fast keto meal options or easy keto meal prep throughout the week! My local store carries an Italian-style cheese blend, but if your's does not, you can easily substitute 1 cup of shredded mozzarella and 1 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese for the 2 cups of Italian-style cheese blend in the recipe. Nutrition information is provided as an estimate only.
Easy Keto Meatballs
Ingredients
Instructions
To freeze:
Notes
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 5
Serving Size: 4 meatballs
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 768Total Fat: 55gSaturated Fat: 26gTrans Fat: 2gUnsaturated Fat: 22gCholesterol: 305mgSodium: 1199mgCarbohydrates: 3gFiber: 1gSugar: 1gProtein: 63g
Sarah
Thursday 12th of May 2022
Nutrition Information is incorrect. You stated 1g carb per meatball. Serving size is 4 meatballs= 4g carbs, yet it shows only 1g carb. Should I consider all the nutrition information is for 1 meatball? 205 calories per meatball?
Candi
Thursday 12th of May 2022
Oh dear! Thanks for catching that!! I've re-run the calculator and it should be correct now. Four meatballs is 3g carbs, and if you do net carbs, you can subtract the 1g of fiber, giving you 2g net carbs for each serving.
Emily Oloughlin
Thursday 22nd of April 2021
So do you bake the meatballs, freeze then bake again?
Candi
Thursday 22nd of April 2021
I prefer to bake the meatballs before freezing as I feel they hold up a bit better in the freezer. Use them just as you would any store-bought frozen meatballs. So bake, then freeze, then reheat. (Cooking after freezing is just to reheat, so no real baking there.) I usually just pull a bag out to thaw in the fridge, then pull some meatballs out and place in a bowl with some Rao's marinara sauce and microwave for a few minutes until heated through, then top with a bit of mozzarella cheese. ;)
However, you absolutely can make up the meatballs and freeze them uncooked, then bake before eating. Just make sure you freeze the meatballs on a tray for a day or so first before packaging them up, to make sure they hold their shape and don't stick to each other.
mollY canfield
Monday 25th of January 2021
How can I read reviews of this recipe? When I tap on the stars or 56 reviews, nothing shows up. I want to read reviews before I invest in such a large amount of food.
Thank you!
Kimberly koker
Friday 17th of December 2021
@mollY canfield, just half the recipe or quarter it
Candi
Tuesday 26th of January 2021
The reviews will usually show at the bottom under the recipe card. There is a Comments & Reviews section, and there will be one tab for Comments and next to it a tab for Reviews. They actually come from two places, and it looks like the reviews (the star ratings) from the recipe card will not show unless and until there is at least one comment on the blog post (which comes from a different system). Now that you've posted a comment they should show up. This appears to be a bug in the system, and I will contact the programmers right away to see what can be done to get this fixed - thank you for pointing this out! I'll do my best to get this resolved ASAP.