Air Fryer Meatballs

Meatball wrap, anyone?  Air fryer meatballs are so delicious that you’ll soon be hunting out new ways to serve them. The air fryer makes them golden and sizzling on the outside but soft and juicy in the middle. Made with beef mince, parmesan and fresh basil, these meatballs got five stars from our recipe testers!

The secret to awesome air fryer meatballs

We borrowed a technique from Italy to keep these meatballs soft inside. It’s a panade: a mash of bread and milk. It works by stopping the fibres in the beef from getting tough as they cook, keeping moisture inside the meatball and preventing the protein from drying out.

This means that, instead of the dry and hard meatballs you might have cooked before, you’ll get delightful meatballs that can be squashed with a spoon. Ready to dig in?  

Serving your air fryer meatballs

Now that you know how to make the perfect air fryer meatball, here are some delicious ways to eat them.

-       🍴     The classic meatball marinara: boil spaghetti in a big pan of salted water, then drain it and reheat a bottle of marinara sauce in the hot pan. Add the spaghetti and meatballs back to the sauce, heat through, and dish up!

-     🍴      To prep ahead or batch cook, we love to make a meatball pasta bake. Boil your pasta for a minute less than the pack says. Drain and put into an oven dish with plenty of tomato pasta sauce and your cooked meatballs. Mix well and cover with grated cheese. Freeze or chill and then oven bake or air fry (180°C for 19-25 mins) when you’re ready to eat.  

-       🍴     Make a simple marinara sauce in your air fryer: halve 5-6 tomatoes and arrange them on the crisper rack in a single layer. Add a couple of unpeeled, chunky garlic cloves too. Spray it all with olive oil. Cook at 190°C until the tomatoes look blistered and the garlic is slightly golden. Then peel the garlic cloves and whiz it all in a blender with a splash of water, salt and sugar to taste.

-     🍴       For a hearty lunch, make yourself a meatball flatbread. Warm some marinara sauce in the microwave and spoon it into a flatbread or baguette. Cover with your cooked air fryer meatballs and add grated cheese and/or sriracha before squeezing shut and eating, with napkins on hand!

Air Fryer Meatballs

Serves 3-4
(Tip: prep the whole batch and freeze any that you don’t want to cook right away)

1 thick slice of white bread
2-3 tbsp milk
1 egg
3 tbsp grated parmesan
1 tsp onion granules
1 tsp garlic granules
1tbsp chopped fresh basil (or 1 tsp dried basil)
Salt and black pepper
450g beef mince

1 – Place the bread in a large bowl and pour the milk over it; leave to sit until it’s all soaked in, then mash it with a fork.  

2 – Add the egg, parmesan, onion and garlic granules, basil, salt and pepper and mix very well.

3 – Add the beef mince and mix again. Form into walnut-sized meatballs and place on a tray.

3 – Place the crisper rack into the glass drawer of your Clear Mini.  

4 -  Arrange the meatballs in a single layer.

5 – Cook at 190°C for 6-8 minutes.  Check for doneness: cut one meatball in half to ensure it is cooked right through.

6 – Serve with sauce or other extras!

MEAT-BALL US OVER!

Made a plate of air fryer meatballs?  We wanna see how they look and what you eat them with! Make your Mama proud. Share your pics with us @KelenandWillian – our favourites get saved to the grid.