You will love these succulent meatballs with sauce recipe easy! This is an example of great classic Italian cuisine. Sweet, sour, and savory flavors are all found in one place
Lamb meatballs with sour cherries, pomegranate, and pistachios Try to get dried sour cherries for this. If you want a balance of sweet and sour.
Meatballs with sour cherries sauce
This dish is really simple, although it is a bit time-consuming. The first step is to make meatballs (they can be prepared and frozen for a week). The second step is to make the cherry sauce.
Finally, the meatballs are baked or pan-fried briefly cooked, then boiled very gently in cherry sauce and sprinkled with chopped parsley on top of a garnish of toasted pine nuts and beaten bread.
Do you know that lamb meatballs and sour cherries sauce go so well together?
Sour Cherries
In fact, you can also serve this sour cherry sauce with roast lamb.
Can you easily find canned sour cherries wherever you live? If not you buy from here…
I don’t cook with them often, but this is a great ingredient. Perfect for savory dishes like these meatballs. I have used them in a dish before!
Do you like this simple Italian lamb meatball sour cherry sauce dish?
Ingredients of meatballs with cherry sauce recipe easy
Okay, let’s talk about the ingredients you will need in this easy baked meatballs with sour cherries recipe. (The entire volume is included in the recipe below!)
Breadcrumbs: I have found that breadcrumbs work best in cooked meatballs, but you are welcome to use any type of breadcrumbs (seasoned or not).
Milk: We will mix a little milk with breadcrumbs to make pakoras, which will help keep our meatballs nice and moist.
Ground beef and lamb meat: I like to use a 50/50 mixture of the two to make meatballs, but you can also make meatballs from all-beef or all-lamb meat if you want.
Fresh Garlic: Minced or pressed.
Eggs: Which will help tie all of our meatball ingredients together.
Parmesan: As always, I highly recommend using freshly grated Parmesan (instead of per-grated stuff) for flavor and freshness.
And if you have a kitchen scale, I recommend weighing the Parmesan to make sure you have the right amount – 1.5 oz.
Fresh Italian Herbs: I always love the taste and the added color that adds fresh herbs to a batch of meatballs. So I used a mixture of basil and parsley here.
But if you don’t have fresh herbs, no worries, just read my replacement options below.
Grated Yellow Onion: Yes, grated. Even as someone who really loves onions, I always get a little weird with a piece of dried onion in my meatballs.
So I recommend using a box grater (or attachment to a food processor) to grind the onion into small pieces before adding it to the mixture.
Worcestershire Sauce: Adds such fabulous flavor! If you do not have it, buy it from here…
Dry Masala: A simple blend of dried parsley, sea salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes.
How to make meatball with sour cherries easy
To make these meatballs with sauce recipe easy, just… make the pan.
In a large mixing bowl, combine breadcrumb and milk together. Set the mixture aside for 5 to 10 minutes and while you prepare the other ingredients. Then use a fork to compress the mixture into a paste.
Add remaining ingredients. Add ground beef, ground pork, garlic, eggs, Parmesan, fresh herbs, onions, and Worcestershire sauce (same) to the mixing bowl.
Sprinkle the parsley, salt, pepper, and crushed red chili flakes evenly. Use your hands to mix the ingredients until evenly combined, being careful not to over-mix the ingredients.
Meatball Form-
Using a medium cookie scoop or spoon, roll the mixture into 2-tablespoon spoon balls and place them on a prepared baking sheet. (I recommend lowering your hands with olive oil to prevent mixing.)
Using wet hands, form the meat into 24 balls just a little bigger than a walnut.
As you make them, place them on a baking sheet or tray. Cover them and keep them in the fridge for 45 minutes or so determined to do so.
fridge (optional step)-
To make the meatballs easier to make, I recommend covering and cooling the mixture in the refrigerator for 1 hour. But if you are pressed for time, you can skip this step.
For the sauce-
pour cherry and pomegranate juice into a saucepan and boil. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the cherries to sit in the hot liquid and immerse for 40 minutes or so.
Prep oven and baking sheet-
Preheat the oven to 425 ° F and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
To bake-
Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until an instantaneous read thermometer measures the internal temperature of the meatball to 160 ° F. Remove pan and transfer to a wire cooling rack.
frying-
Heat 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in a frying pan and fry the meatballs in batches (they will leave a lot of oil on frying).
Each is very browned as a transfer to a plate. Remember that you are not cooking through these, just browning them.
Slowly fry the onion in 1 tbsp of oil in a large shallow casserole or deep fry until golden. Add garlic and cook for another couple, then add wine, stock, pomegranate jaggery, cinnamon, and bay.
Add cherries, they should also have absorbed almost all of the pomegranate juice. Put the meatballs back into the pan.
Bring the sauce under boiling, then reduce the heat, season well, cover the pan, and cook for 15 minutes. Close the lid and cook for another 15 minutes.
You should have a nice sauce around the meatballs, but if it seems too thin, remove the meatballs and reduce the sauce to boiling, then put the meatballs back.
Taste for the spice-
you should consider the sweetness as well as the saltiness – and adjust it if you need to (sometimes I add a teaspoon of honey or a little more pomegranate jaggery to this level).
Sprinkle with herbs, pistachios, and pomegranate seeds to finish your meatballs with a sauce recipe easily.
Serve-
Serve meatballs with sauce recipe easy immediately and enjoy!
Tip-
Take a little pinch of the meatball mixture, fry it in some hot oil – then taste it – that way you will know if you have to adjust the seasoning or spill (the worst mistake in making meatballs is not to season them properly).
Lamb meatballs with sauce recipe easy to make
Equipment
- Cast Iron Dutch Oven: I used to fry in my cast iron skillet, but this dutch oven is perfect for cooking the vegetables and rice, maintaining heat without any hot spots that may burn the food.
Ingredients
Common Ingrediant
- 1½ tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp chopped coriander
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley
- 2 tbsp very roughly chopped pistachios
- 2 tbsp pomegranate seeds
For the meatballs
- 1 Kg Lamb mince
- 1 small Red onion, grated
- 4 cloves Garlic cloves, grated
- 1 nos. Red chili, deseeded and very finely chopped
- 1 small Lemon, zested
- 50 gm fresh white breadcrumbs
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp ground allspice
- 3 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp fine salt (you may need more – see tip)
For the sauce
- 75 g Dried sour cherries
- 100 ml pomegranate juice
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic , crushed
- 100 ml red wine Optional
- 250 ml lamb stock
- ½ tbsp pomegranate molasses
- ½ inch cinnamon stick
- 2 bay leaves
Instructions
Make Meatball Form
- Put all the ingredients for the meatballs in a large bowl and mix them together with your hands, really pummelling the meat so that the spices and seasoning get well mixed in.
- Using wet hands, form the meat into 24 balls just a little bigger than a walnut.
- As you form these, put them on a baking sheet or a tray. Cover them and put them in the fridge for 45 mins or so to firm up.
For the sauce-
- put the cherries and the pomegranate juice in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Take the pan off the heat and leave the cherries to sit in the warm liquid and plump up for 40 mins or so.
- Heat 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and fry the meatballs in batches (they will give off lots of oil when frying). Transfer to a plate as each lot is browned.
- Remember you aren’t cooking these through, just browning them. Gently fry the onion in 1 tbsp oil in a large shallow casserole or deep frying pan until pale gold.
- Add the garlic and cook for another couple of mins, then add the wine, stock, pomegranate molasses, cinnamon, and bay.
- Add the cherries, too – they should have absorbed nearly all of the pomegranate juice.
- Put the meatballs back in the pan. Bring the sauce to just under boiling, then turn the heat down low, season well, cover the pan, and cook for 15 mins. Take the lid off and cook for another 15 mins.
- You should have a nice sauce around the meatballs, but if it seems too thin, remove the meatballs and reduce the sauce by boiling it, then put the meatballs back in.
Taste for seasoning –
- you should consider the sweetness as well as the saltiness – and adjust it if you need to (sometimes I add a teaspoon of honey at this stage, or a little more pomegranate molasses).
- Scatter with the herbs, pistachios, and pomegranate seeds to finish.
Notes
PER SERVING 569 kcals • fat 35g • saturates 14g • carbs 15g • sugars 12g • fiber 5g • protein 44g • salt 2.2g
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