Small round cutlets are familiar to everyone firsthand. They are fried, baked and steamed. Before you cook meatballs, you should know that for the dish you can use any minced meat or a combination, add not only rice, but also cabbage, beans, buckwheat.

There are many recipes for cooking, each of which has its own secrets.

Meatballs with tomato sauce

A variety of recipes primarily relates to the preparation of sauces and gravy, which can be sharp, sweet, sour, with spicy notes from oriental spices.

Meatballs in tomato sauce from ½ kg of ground beef and pork can easily be prepared using the following products:

  • carrots - 100 g;
  • onions - 150 g;
  • rice - 125 g;
  • tomato paste - 50 ml;
  • flour - 70 g;
  • egg - 1 pc.;
  • sugar - 1 tsp;
  • salt, spices (coriander, pepper), bay leaf - to taste.

To enjoy roast meatballs with tomato sauce:

  1. Rice is boiled and washed with running water.
  2. The carrots are rubbed, and the onions are diced.
  3. In a separate container, minced meat is salted, pepper and mixed with carrots, ½ onion and rice.
  4. Wet hands roll the balls from the mass, fall off in flour and fry in hot oil.
  5. After the appearance of a brownish crust between the "cutlets" the remaining half of the onion falls asleep for several minutes.
  6. In 0.5 l of water, paste, flour, sugar are diluted, after which the balls are filled with liquid.
  7. The contents of the pan are seasoned and salted.
  8. After ⅔ hours of simmering over low heat, the dish is removed from the stove and aged for about 10-15 minutes.

Advice! People who prefer diet food can replace pork and beef with poultry meat: chicken meatballs in tomato sauce are absolutely not inferior in taste.

Oven recipe

To taste oven meatballs with gravy, using a set of products from the classic recipe, you can use the oven. This dish is suitable for people who adhere to a healthy diet, in which products fried in oil are excluded.

Oven meatballs are prepared as follows:

  1. Rice is boiled, vegetables are chopped.
  2. Meatballs are made from minced meat with rice and an egg and laid out in a pan.
  3. In a separate container, pasta, flour, sugar are dissolved in water, after which onion cubes and carrot chips are added to the dishes.
  4. Balls are poured with sauce and placed for ⅔ hours in an oven at a temperature of 180 °.

Hedgehogs - meatballs with rice and gravy

Hedgehog meatballs owe their name to sticking rice, similar to needles.

To execute dishes of ½ kg of minced meat according to this recipe, you will need:

  • carrots - 100 g;
  • onions - 200 g;
  • rice (boiled until half cooked) - 250 g;
  • tomatoes - 200 g;
  • flour - 30 g;
  • egg - 1 pc.;
  • water - 800 ml;
  • salt, sugar, spices (coriander, pepper, hops-suneli) - to taste.

During:

  1. A mixture for meatballs is prepared from minced meat, chopped onion, boiled rice, eggs, pepper and salt.
  2. Small koloboks are rolled from the mixture and placed in a pan with a thick bottom.
  3. The second onion and carrot chips are fried in a frying pan, where tomatoes, grated in a blender, are often added, often replaced with 50 g of tomato paste.
  4. After frying the tomatoes, flour is added.
  5. After a minute, boiling water is poured into the sauce, and everything is mixed so that flour lumps do not form.
  6. After boiling, the gravy is salted, pepper, sugar and seasoned.
  7. The sauce is poured into a pan with hedgehogs, after which the dish is stewed for ⅓ hours until cooked.

Important! In the preparation of this dish, meatballs are stewed in a pan, since during the frying process the "needles" will disappear.

How to cook in a slow cooker?

Meatballs with gravy can also be cooked in a slow cooker using the previous recipe.

The main difference is in the stages of preparation:

  1. The sauce is prepared in the "Frying" or "Baking" mode, and then poured into a separate bowl.
  2. Balls are rolled from prepared minced meat and placed in an empty bowl.
  3. Meatballs are poured with gravy and cooked in the “Stew” mode for about half an hour.
  4. After the beep, the dish can be served to the table.

Cooking with the addition of cabbage

Traditional meatballs can be varied by adding cabbage, preparing the ingredients from a basic recipe and adding 300 g of cabbage.

However, the cooking method is slightly different:

  1. Onions are cut into cubes, carrots are rubbed, and cabbage is cut into slices.
  2. Prepared vegetables are sautéed over low heat, then grinded in a blender or passed through a meat grinder.
  3. Minced meat is mixed with rice, twisted vegetables, eggs, salt and spices.
  4. Meatballs are formed from the mixture, which are then fried on all sides.
  5. In a pan, a mixture of tomatoes, flour and water is brought to a boil.
  6. Then the meatballs are placed in a saucepan, poured with tomato sauce and stewed for about 25 minutes.

Meatballs, like in kindergarten

At the sight of small cutlets, lunches in kindergarten are often recalled, when there was the most carefree period. Tasting dishes from childhood will help you immerse yourself in it.

To prepare, you must purchase:

  • minced meat - ½ kg;
  • onion - 75 g;
  • rice (boiled) - 125 g;
  • tomato paste - 15 ml;
  • sour cream - 25 ml;
  • flour - 30 g;
  • egg - 1 pc.;
  • water - 250 ml;
  • salt, pepper - to taste.

To return to the past:

  1. Stuffing is mixed with an egg, finely chopped onions and half-cooked rice, salt and pepper.
  2. Koloboks are rolled from the onion-meat mass and, if desired, are crushed in flour, which has a fastening property.
  3. Balls are fried in sunflower oil with the lid open on all sides.
  4. At this time, paste and salt are diluted in ½ cup, after which the liquid is poured into the pan.
  5. After 20 minutes of stewing, sour cream and flour are diluted in the second half of the glass.
  6. The liquid is poured into meatballs, which continue to simmer for a quarter of an hour until tender.

The original recipe for minced fish

Many people think that meatballs are exclusively a meat dish, while forgetting about fish. During fasting days or during a diet, fish balls will be a godsend to diversify the everyday diet.

From ½ kg of cod or hake fillet, you can cook fish meatballs by preparing the following ingredients:

  • onions - 100 g;
  • white bread - 70 g;
  • tomato paste - 75 ml;
  • egg - 1 pc.;
  • oil (grows.) - 75 ml;
  • salt, sugar, lemon juice, spices, herbs - to taste.

To taste the original dish:

  1. The fish fillet is cut into pieces and passed through a meat grinder.
  2. Bread is poured with water, which merges after the product swells.
  3. Onions and herbs are finely chopped.
  4. Minced meat is mixed with egg, pressed bread, salt, spices, herbs.
  5. Small balls are formed from the fish mass and placed in a refrigerator.
  6. At this time, onions are fried in a pan and tomato paste, diluted in 120 ml of boiling water, and lemon juice are added.
  7. Meatballs are placed in the sauce and stewed for a quarter of an hour.

Meatballs in sour cream sauce

Sour cream sauce is a nutritious, hearty supplement. And meatballs with such gravy will win the heart of any man who, by nature, loves a tight and tasty meal.

To prepare such a masterpiece you will need:

  • minced meat - 400 g;
  • onions - 100 g;
  • carrots - 100 g;
  • egg - 1 pc.;
  • cream (low-fat) - 250 ml;
  • sour cream - 300 ml;
  • salt, spices - to taste.

When cooking, you should follow these steps:

  1. The peeled vegetables are crushed, fried and laid out in a bowl for cooling.
  2. From minced meat mixed with fried vegetables and eggs, koloboks are formed and fried in a clean, greased pan.
  3. Sour cream, cream, salt and spices make the sauce by mixing the ingredients.
  4. Sour cream sauce is poured into the pan and meatballs are placed, after which everything is stewed on low heat for about half an hour.

With mushrooms

A mushroom supplement will add a touch of flavor to the dish. When preparing the ingredients, it is enough to replace the cream with the same amount of mushrooms.

But the cooking method has several differences:

  1. Meatballs are rolled from fried carrots and eggs, and then fried
  2. A sauce is prepared from fried onions, mushrooms and sour cream.
  3. Balls are placed in a pan, filled with the resulting sauce and sent to the oven with a temperature of 200 ° for ¼ hours.

Italian Meatballs

When executing a recipe for meat balls in the Italian tradition, frying is excluded, which turns the dish into a suitable meal for people who care about proper nutrition.

At hand should be:

  • minced meat - 600 g;
  • mortadella sausage - 4 slices;
  • egg - 2 pcs.;
  • onions - 100 g;
  • Parmesan cheese - 100 g;
  • breadcrumbs - 40 g;
  • garlic - 1 clove;
  • oil (olive) - 50 ml;
  • mashed tomatoes - 650 ml;
  • water - 650 ml;
  • salt, sugar, spices (basil, pepper), herbs - to taste.

When all the products are on the table:

  1. Garlic and onions are minced and fried in olive oil in a thick-bottomed pan.
  2. After the onion becomes transparent, tomatoes, salt, spices are added to the contents, and then water is poured.
  3. After boiling, the sauce is covered with a lid and simmered over minimal heat.
  4. In a separate bowl, minced meat, minced sausage and grated cheese, crackers, eggs, minced greens, salt and spices are mixed.
  5. Meatballs are formed from the mixture, which are then placed one by one in a boiling sauce.
  6. After an hour of stewing, the dish is ready to eat.

Thus, meatballs are a dish that is loved by adults and children.And the versatility of the ingredients makes it possible to experiment, and get food with different taste notes.

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