Growing up in the Mediterranean I got my fair share of meatball recipes, from fried, baked, cooked in tomato sauce or flavored with different spices. Today I’d love to share with you my recipe for Za’atar Meatballs that I have spiced up with some harissa powder.
While I mostly cook this recipe with ground beef, you can easily substitute beef with chicken or lamb, even sausage or mixes of different ground meats. Check out my oven baked mint meatballs (more traditional) or my turkey meatballs recipe for more options.
Let’s talk ingredients
As for most meatballs recipes, you can get pretty creative with ingredients. But here are the basics. I’ll admit that I often change things around, especially if I don’t have all ingredients on hand. That’s what makes meatball recipes so versatile.
Also, you can switch things up to match seasons. In spring and early summer I use lots of green onions but in Fall and Winter I tend to use a red onion. You can add lots of spinach in the mix too and call it hidden veggie as no one will know!!
Another trick that my grandparents taught me was to soak stale bread in water or milk and use that to mold the meatball mix together, it really helps to amalgamate flavors and ingredients. In the absence of stale bread use panko.
As per za’atar and harissa they’re both spices used widely in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking. They used to be specialty spices until not too long ago but nowadays you can find them both in regular grocery stores.
Note – The most common form of harissa in the US markets is a paste. Look instead for the powder version in the spice section.
Sonila’s tips and notes
If you’re going to fry the meatballs, coat them in flour (season flour to your preference) and fry them in hot oil. I prefer using grapeseed oil since it’s pretty neutral.
More often than not, I bake these meatballs. It’s so easy to just stick them in the oven and get something else done while they bake. I don’t coat them when baking. Usually I place them on parchment paper or on a greased baking dish so meatballs don’t stick.
My trick is to make the meatballs smaller when frying them, but I tend to make them bigger when baking.
Pro-Tip: use these meatball mix to make burger patties, they’re a hit on Memorial Day Weekend or 4th of July BBQ parties!!
Za’atar Meatballs
Equipment
- 1 Wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef you can also use different ground meats like chicken or lamb, or even a mix.
- 1 tbsp za'atar
- 0.5 red onion you can use 4-5 green onions instead as a replacement
- 3 garlic cloves feel free to add more, it doesn't hurt:)
- 1 tsp harissa powder
- 1 cup panko or stale bread
- sea salt
- 1 tbsp oregano
- 3-4 tbsps chopped fresh parsley
- 1 tbsp olive oil optional if mix is dry
Instructions
- Place thawed ground beef in a glass mixing bowl. Add finely chopped onions, minced garlic, chopped parsley over it. Add za'atar, salt and harissa powder together with oregano too.
- If you're using panko add over the other ingredients. If you're using stale bread, soak quickly in milk (or water), squeeze excess out then add bread or panko to glass bowl too.
- Use the wooden spoon to mix all ingredients together. Create about 12 meatballs with your hands and round them up. If you're frying them, I'd make them smaller so maybe about 18 give or take. But for baking 12 is about right.
- Place meatballs on parchment paper in a baking sheet. Bake at 425 degrees F for 30 minutes. Turn oven off and leave the baking tray in for another 5 minutes or so.
- Serve meatballs with a salad, pita bread, rice and/or a yogurt based dip like tzatziki. Enjoy:)
Notes
- For better taste, chill the meatball mix for half an hour to an hour if possible.
- You can double up the recipe and freeze half of the meatballs, then thaw and bake next time you need dinner quickly.
- Baked meatballs can be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container. Warm them up in a toaster oven or microwave.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please pin one of the images from this post to your boards in Pinterest. If you have any questions, please let me know in comments:). I’d love to hear if you made the recipe, if you used any substitutions or how you served it. I answer my readers any chance I get!!
Thank you for reading my blog and making my recipes!! My family and I appreciate it!!
More recipes with za’atar: Za’atar & Honey Butternut Squash, Roasted Acorn Squash , etc
Mediterranean Dinners
Feel free to check out some of these other Mediterranean dinner recipes.
- Baked ziti with ground beef, spinach, ricotta and cottage cheese.
- Tarragon chicken in white wine sauce
- Baked lamb and rice in Dutch Oven
- Albanian stuffed peppers
- Stuffed Cabbage (sarma)
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