Trader Joe’s Homestyle ANGUS BEEF MEATBALLS

These ready to cook meatballs from Trader Joe’s are a fairly recent item, sold fresh in the meat section. I wanted to try them for while but it took some time for me to finally do it.

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/homestyle-angus-beef-meatballs-081242

Trader Joe’s has this to say: “..Our supplier’s recipe starts with a base of tender, ground, 100% Angus Beef, to which they add a bit of panko breadcrumbs…along with onion and garlic purée, a blend of aromatic herbs like basil and oregano, as well as grated Parmesan and Romano cheeses”

Cooking: The box has instructions for cooking the meatballs in the oven (400 for 15-20 minutes) as well as for Air Fryer (400 for 10-15 mins)

Funny they don’t say anything about what I would call the traditional grandma way. Which is to brown them and put them in a pot of tomato sauce. Even easier is you can just put them into the sauce without browning, which is the way my mom used to make meatballs. Still I like the flavor you get with browning them. Plus you can get the fond in the pan into your sauce.

Sauce: Take your pick. To save some dough, just use TJ’s very decent $2 tomato basil MARINARA sauce (24 oz). Or two jars to make a huge batch. I would lean toward the cooking in the sauce, the traditional method, for the best flavor but thats your call if you want to Air Fry them and add some sauce on later depending on how you are serving the meatballs. We made them doing the traditional way, brown and simmer in sauce (15 minutes or so).

If you want something really special, for your sauce use TJ’s fantastic $5 CARO SUGO tomato sauce. That will upgrade everything.

We served them in the classic way: Spaghetti and Meatballs.

You get 12 meatballs in the package which is 1 1/2 lbs. For $10. Not a terrible deal. We had Spaghetti and Meatballs and ate 2 or 3 meatballs each for dinner. We had leftovers and got had another meal for later in the week out of the one package.

REVIEW: Overall I would say these were pretty good. I could not compare these to say “Grandma’s meatballs” of course but really these were not bad at all. These were pretty tasty served up as spaghetti and meatballs. Pretty easy with a jar or two of sauce from the store but if you make your own sauce, great! I did think they could have used a bit more of everything flavor wise.

Now I can make meatballs from scratch, which are great, but honestly I have not made meatballs in a LONG TIME! So I would call these the next best thing to home made and pretty easy. They had a good meatball texture, being neither too soft nor too firm. You can fix these up.

FIXING THEM UP: You can easily improve these and fix them up adding a thing or two. Cheese for one thing. I wish these had way more cheese flavors but you can basically fix that by grating on a ton of Pecorino or Permesan when you serve them. Also I would add Italian seasoning(s) when you cook them. Fresh basil would be a knockout punch.

These would work for making “meat sauce” or use them for making Heros or Subs like in the picture (Meatball Sub). Or match with any kind of pasta. I read somewhere that someone even used these to make “Italian Wedding Soup” (he made them smaller). So get creative. Overall, pretty tasty even if they will not fool Grandma.

$9.99 (24 oz / 12 meatballs) – (I think they used to be $8 when they came out a year or so back?)

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/90321/meatball-sandwich/

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