Add One Pantry Staple To Meatballs For A Flavor-Packed Upgrade

Tips for making and serving onion soup mix meatballs

For a delightful, French-inspired one-pan meatball dish, prepare a meatball mixture using ground meat, breadcrumbs, an egg, and onion soup mix. Typically, you'll need one 1-ounce packet (or 2 tablespoons) for each pound of ground meat. If you don’t have onion soup mix on hand, you can easily create your own using common pantry staples. To make a homemade onion soup mix, crush a beef bouillon cube and mix it with dried onion flakes, onion powder, parsley flakes, and a pinch of black pepper and paprika to taste. Then, incorporate this blend into your meatball mixture as usual.

If you want to highlight the alliums, caramelize slices of the finest onion variety suited for French onion soup to enhance the onion flavor in your meatballs. After simmering the browned meatballs with the caramelized onions, some home cooks enjoy adding shavings of the often-overlooked Gruyere cheese to melt on top. Alternatively, you can stuff the meatballs with more cheese for an even richer experience.

A pound of ground beef yields about 16 meatballs. You can serve them simply with a slice of toasted baguette for dipping, or use a piece of crusty bread to create a hearty sandwich. Another option is to add cooked gnocchi or noodles to the pan, along with some broth, for a cheesy pasta bake. The possibilities are endless when your meatballs are infused with the savory flavor of onion soup mix.