Try out this delicious mini meatballs recipe with roasted red peppers and tomato sauce for a tasty twist on a classic dish. These mini Italian meatballs cook up fast and are so delicious thanks to the really easy roasted red pepper and tomato sauce. Perfect for a family dinner or as an appetizer at a party!
My family loves this mini meatball recipe and I make it often since the mini meatballs quick up very quickly. If I do not have time for my slow cooker polpette, I am making this instead.
All of the cooking is done on the stovetop and the sauce for the meatballs, made up of roasted red peppers, tomato sauce, fresh basil, and garlic is light and compliments the meatballs perfectly.
You can pull off a delicious meatball dinner during the week with this recipe. Even though this is super easy to make for dinner, I will often make this dish in the afternoon if I have extra time and then reheat everything later on for dinner. It is such an amazing meal and I know you will love this as much as I do once you try it.
What You'll Need
- Jar Of Roasted Red Bell Peppers
- Tomato Sauce: You can also use Passata
- Ground Beef: I like to use an 85 % lean ground beef
- Italian Bread Crumbs: You can also use plain bread crumbs.
- Egg
- Fresh basil
- Fresh garlic cloves
- Kosher salt
How To Make Mini Meatballs With Roasted Peppers and Tomato Sauce
The steps are really easy for this one. If you can, have someone help you roll the meatballs to make it even faster!
- Make the mini meatballs: Add the ground meat, breadcrumbs, garlic, and basil to a large mixing bowl and mix well. Now add the egg and mix that in until well combined. Once the mixture is well combined, take a large tablespoon full of the meat and roll it into mini meatballs. Keep doing this until all the meat is used up.
- Cook the meatballs: Preheat a large skillet over medium heat with olive oil. Once preheated, add the meatballs and cook until browned on all sides. You will need to turn the meatballs after 2 minutes to brown all sides. When cooked, turn off the heat and cover.
- Make the roasted red pepper and tomato sauce: In a medium saucepan on the stovetop, add garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes. Then add the tomato sauce and roasted red peppers. Mix well, add salt then reduce heat to low to a simmer for about 5 minutes.
- Combine: Once the red pepper and tomato sauce is finished simmering, add the sauce to the meatballs then mix well to coat them in the sauce. Allow the meatballs to cook in the sauce on low heat for about 5 minutes.
- Enjoy!
How many mini meatballs per pound of ground beef?
I use one pound of ground beef for this recipe and it yields about 24 meatballs. This also serves about 5-6 meatballs per person.
If you are serving more people or want leftovers, you can certainly, and very easily double the recipe. You may need to cook the meatballs in batches!
Variations
I love giving ideas on how to change things up because Italian cooking is all about using what you have on hand and what is fresh. Here are some ideas for this:
- Use fresh garden tomatoes: Instead of the tomato sauce, if you have fresh tomatoes, dice those up and cook them down with the red peppers.
- Use stale bread instead of breadcrumbs: If I have stale bread in the house, I love throwing that into a food processor and mixing it until it resembles fine bread crumbs and using that for the meatballs. So good!
- Add in more veggies to the sauce: Just like the roasted red peppers that are left whole in the sauce, you can saute up some zucchini or maybe another veggie and then add that to the sauce.
- Change up the sauce: if you prefer a more authentic Italian meatball experience, make an authentic Italian marinara sauce to go with it.
Storing And Reheating
This is such a great dish for making ahead of time.
Storing: To store these meatballs, allow it to cool almost all the way then place it in a container with a lid and refrigerate for up to 3 days. You can also freeze the meatballs and sauce instead of refrigerating. It will last in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Reheating: To reheat, pour the meatballs and sauce into a medium saucepan then heat on low heat covered for about 10-15 minutes. Make sure to stir often. You may need to add a little water to the pan during the reheating.
Keeping warm in a slow cooker: If I am entertaining, I will reheat the meatballs (if I make them ahead of time) and then place them into a slow cooker set to warm. It will stay warm and ready to eat this way for a few hours. You can also add them straight into the slow cooker right after the dish is made. Just make sure they are very hot when you add them to the slow cooker to keep them warm for any duration.
What To Serve With These Mini Meatballs
We often eat this dish on its own but sometimes we add a side or main to go with it. Here are my favorites:
Mini Meatballs With Roasted Peppers And Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 15 ounces tomato sauce
- 13 ounces jarred Roasted Red Peppers course chopped
- 1 lb ground beef 85% Lean
- 1 cup Italian breadcrumbs
- ½ cup fresh basil divided
- 1 large egg
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt divided
- 2 tablespoon olive oil divided
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add ground beef, bread crumbs, ½ of the garlic, ½ of the basil, and ½ teaspoon of kosher salt. Mix well until combined. Then add the egg and mix well.1 lb ground beef, 1 cup Italian breadcrumbs, ½ cup fresh basil, 4 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1 large egg
- Grab a heaping tablespoon of the ground meat mixture and roll it into a mini meatball then place onto a plate. repeat this until all of the meat is used.
- Preheat a large skillet over medium heat.
- Add 1 tablespoon olive oil then place meatballs in the skillet and cook for about minutes or so per side until the meatballs are browned on all sides.
- Once cooked, turn off the heat and cover with a lid.
- In a medium saucepan, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and garlic and cook for 1 minute.4 cloves garlic
- Now add the red peppers and tomato sauce and mix well.13 ounces jarred Roasted Red Peppers, 15 ounces tomato sauce
- Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes, pour the sauce over the meatballs in the large pan and mix well making sure to coat the meatballs in the sauce.
- Gently simmer on low for 5 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Emily says
My family loved this!
kisitalian says
So glad to hear that 🙂