Easy Keto Meatballs

Easy keto meatballs you can make ahead and keep in the freezer for fast dinners on busy nights! Or use them for easy meal prep meals throughout the week!! Only 2g net carbs per serving!!

Easy Keto Meatballs in a white baking dish, covered with marinara sauce and topped with melted mozzarella cheese, garnished with fresh parsley

Easy Keto Meatballs

These are my Easy Keto Meatballs that you can make in a large batch and freeze to use in later meals, or use them for your weekly meal prep.  This recipe came about because one of the hardest parts of eating keto for me is the constant having to make meals from scratch. Because my family does not eat keto, I usually end up making the family meal first, and then run out of steam (and energy, and motivation) to make a second meal for myself.

So I like to have easy keto freezer meals that I can pull out for my meals, that don’t require a lot of extra cooking. Sometimes it is just a pre-cooked protein, that I can then pair with a sauce or use in a salad.

I’ve posted recently about my favorite gluten-free freezer meatballs, and they have worked out so well, I decided to make a keto version of them just for me!

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They are tender and juicy and full of flavor!

My favorite way to eat them is baked in a casserole dish, covered with a bit of keto-approved spaghetti or marinara sauce, and smothered in a whole heck of a lot of cheese that is then broiled to bring out a nice golden brown crust!

I keep bags of these easy baked meatballs in my freezer and they are SO incredibly handy!

And best of all, my family will eat these no questions asked. In some ways they like these even better than our normal gluten-free meatballs (which are already fabulous), but I do have to draw the line somewhere and keep some just for myself so I don’t go hungry. 😉

Easy Keto Meatballs portioned out on a baking sheet and ready to bake

The Ground Beef

I prefer to use 80/20 lean ground beef here – I feel like it’s a nice balance with enough fat to keep things juicy and flavorful without having the meatballs get too dry.

I have tried leaner ground beef before, and it tends to make for drier, tougher meatballs.  Since we’re aiming for keto meatballs here, there’s no need to shy away from the fat.

But on the other hand, if you get too much fat in there, then you have meatballs that fall apart and drown in a puddles of grease.  No bueno

You could absolutely ramp these up a notch and walk on the wild side by going with a half-ground-beef/half-ground-pork mixture, and I think you’d really be on to something.  But for this one, I wanted to just keep things simple and stick with plain ground beef.

The Preparation

Just like with my Easy Baked Freezer Meatballs, you really want to use a scoop for these! 

Not only does it speed up making the meatballs, it also makes them all uniform which makes for more even cooking. 

There’s nothing more frustrating than a tray of meatballs where a couple are cooked through but then you find the rest are either over- or under-cooked!  Grrr… 

So don’t do that.  

Take a few minutes, and invest a few dollars into a good quality scoop.  You will find you use it for SO many things!  I use a medium cookie scoop, usually marked as a a #30 or #40 scoop (they are very close in size, so either will work).

For specific recommendations on the scoops I love and use in my kitchen, see my post HERE.

And don’t forget to use a silicone baking mat with these – it makes getting them off the tray so much easier, and clean up is a breeze!

Especially important since these meatballs use cheese as one of the binders, and it will tend to melt out of the meatball while baking.

Easy Keto Meatballs on a baking sheet after coming out of the oven

Freezing and Reheating Your Easy Keto Meatballs

I generally let the meatballs cool a bit after coming out of the oven, and then scoop them into a gallon ziptop freezer bag that I have labeled.  Then into the freezer they go.

You can flash freeze them if you’d like – just let your tray of keto meatballs cool, and then stick the entire thing, meatballs, tray and all, into the freezer for a couple hours until the meatballs have frozen solid.

Then remove the tray and meatballs from the freezer, transfer the frozen meatballs into your freezer bag or container of choice, and place them back into the freezer until needed.

Your best reheating method will really depend on how you intend to use them.  Since I often eat these as my main entree, I pull a bag of frozen keto meatballs out of the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge overnight.  

Then I place the thawed meatballs into a baking dish, cover with a big of keto-approved spaghetti or marinara sauce, top with cheese, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes, then place under the broiler for an additional five minutes to get the cheese all nice and bubbly and brown.

 

Having pre-made frozen meatballs that are low-carb and keto-approved has been such a game changer on nights when I’m tired, or things are busy, or I’m struggling to stay on track.  And these easy keto meatballs work great for meal prep, too!  Make up a batch and put them in meal prep containers with your favorite sauce and some zoodles or low-carb noodles and you’ve got nearly instant gratification for lunch or dinner throughout the week!  Or heck, eat them all as snacks throughout the day – I won’t judge!

 

Easy Keto Meatballs in a white baking dish covered with marinara sauce and melted cheese!

Easy Keto Meatballs

Servings: 5 servings
Course: Freezer Meal Recipes
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Simple keto meatballs you can make in advance and freeze to keep on hand for fast keto meal options or easy keto meal prep throughout the week!
4.5 from 76 votes
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INGREDIENTS
 

  • 2 pounds ground beef
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups Italian-style shredded cheese blend or 1 cup shredded mozzarella and 1 cup shredded Parmesan
  • 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 4 teaspoons dried basil
  • 2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 teaspoons dried parsley
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano

INSTRUCTIONS

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Combine all ingredients in large bowl and use clean hands to mix.
  • Using a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop (size #30 or #40), portion out a meatball. Roll gently between hands to shape, then place on a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat.
  • Continue portioning out meatballs until all meat mixture has been used.
  • Bake meatballs at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes.
  • Remove from oven and allow to cool.

To freeze:

  • Place cooled meatballs into gallon-size ziptop freezer bag or freezer container of your choice. Label and date, and place into freezer.

NOTES

My local store carries an Italian-style cheese blend, but if your's does not, you can easily substitute 1 cup of shredded mozzarella and 1 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese for the 2 cups of Italian-style cheese blend in the recipe.

NUTRITION

Serving: 4meatballs | Calories: 768kcal | Carbohydrates: 3g | Protein: 63g | Fat: 55g | Saturated Fat: 26g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 22g | Trans Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 305mg | Sodium: 1199mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g
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38 Comments

  1. How can I read reviews of this recipe? When I tap on the stars or 56 reviews, nothing shows up.
    I want to read reviews before I invest in such a large amount of food.

    Thank you!

    1. The reviews will usually show at the bottom under the recipe card. There is a Comments & Reviews section, and there will be one tab for Comments and next to it a tab for Reviews. They actually come from two places, and it looks like the reviews (the star ratings) from the recipe card will not show unless and until there is at least one comment on the blog post (which comes from a different system). Now that you’ve posted a comment they should show up. This appears to be a bug in the system, and I will contact the programmers right away to see what can be done to get this fixed – thank you for pointing this out! I’ll do my best to get this resolved ASAP.

    1. I prefer to bake the meatballs before freezing as I feel they hold up a bit better in the freezer. Use them just as you would any store-bought frozen meatballs. So bake, then freeze, then reheat. (Cooking after freezing is just to reheat, so no real baking there.) I usually just pull a bag out to thaw in the fridge, then pull some meatballs out and place in a bowl with some Rao’s marinara sauce and microwave for a few minutes until heated through, then top with a bit of mozzarella cheese. 😉

      However, you absolutely can make up the meatballs and freeze them uncooked, then bake before eating. Just make sure you freeze the meatballs on a tray for a day or so first before packaging them up, to make sure they hold their shape and don’t stick to each other.

  2. Nutrition Information is incorrect. You stated 1g carb per meatball. Serving size is 4 meatballs= 4g carbs, yet it shows only 1g carb. Should I consider all the nutrition information is for 1 meatball? 205 calories per meatball?

    1. Oh dear! Thanks for catching that!! I’ve re-run the calculator and it should be correct now. Four meatballs is 3g carbs, and if you do net carbs, you can subtract the 1g of fiber, giving you 2g net carbs for each serving.

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