Easy Weeknight Paleo Meatballs

These paleo meatballs are flavorful, tender, and quick and easy to make! With just a few ingredients, they are perfect for a party appetizer or weeknight dinner.

Spaghetti and meatballs is one of those all-american, full-on, warm you from the inside out comfort foods.

But typically meatballs contain breadcrumbs, and spaghetti is - well, pasta - neither of which fit in very well in the paleo and gluten free world.

If you're trying to eat paleo, and you're craving this dish, the first thing you're going to need are some paleo meatballs. Never fear - I've got you covered.

With ground beef, an egg, and some spices, you can have these paleo meatballs whipped up in no time.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Serving suggestions
• Pro tips
• Recipe
• Easy Weeknight Paleo Meatballs

I had a day where I was craving spaghetti and meatballs, which is fairly random for me.

I typically feel like the things I crave have some history within me - something my mom used to make when I was little, or something I associate with a particular time and place.

(Because remember, food is never JUST about food!)

I don't have a strong association with spaghetti and meatballs that I can remember. But, there it was.

And if there's one thing I've learned in my years of nutrition experimentation and food journey, it's to find a way to answer your cravings, because ignoring them won't work in the slightest.

So, here we go! Paleo meatballs (with paleo spaghetti, of course.)

Ingredients

I always try to use grass-fed beef when possible.

This can be a little bit more costly than traditional ground beef, which is usually grain-fed.

I find that my body and my skin feel better when I stick to grass-fed cow products. Sometimes you can find it on sale, and if you do, stock up! You can always freeze it for later.

For these paleo meatballs, you'll need a pound of ground beef. I recommend a ground chuck if you can find one, which is about an 80/20 lean to fat ratio.

A 70/30 will be a bit too fatty, and anything leaner than 80/20 will have trouble staying together.

I have seen other recipes that do a 50/50 mix of ground beef and ground pork, or mix in other ground meat types such as ground turkey, but I prefer to stick with just beef. If you choose the right kind, you shouldn't have any trouble. You can check out my post on Types of Ground Beef: A Complete Guide to learn more about when to use what.

Now, we're also going to use an egg to help hold them together, a few spices and some coconut aminos for flavoring.

When you mix all that together in a large bowl, your paleo meatball mixture is going to be pretty wet. We need to dry it out a bit, but we can't use traditional breadcrumbs (not paleo).

While some paleo meatball recipes use almond flour, I chose to use coconut flour - I use it in my hamburger recipe as well, and it always does a nice job of absorbing some but not all of the moisture.

Keep in mind that with coconut flour, a little bit goes a long way! Give it a second to absorb and see what the consistency looks like and feels like before adding more.

If you want to use an alternate flour, I would recommend cassava as a close substitute. If you need some other ideas on appropriate alternative flours and amounts, you can check out this post.

Instructions

If you look around on the internet, you'll find many varying temperatures and times for cooking meatballs.

Heck, you'll even find a number of different methods!

For this recipe, we're going to bake them in the oven, on a baking sheet. (This sheet pan is my absolute favorite.) In my experience, I've found a higher temp for a shorter period of time tends to create a less dry end product.

I baked these at 400° for about 18-20 minutes.

Once you've made your mixture, roll them into balls and space them out like this:

If you don't have a rack, that's ok. You can put them directly on the parchment and they will cook just the same.

The rack simply helps them get up so they can get the heat all around them, and can help them to be crispy on all sides.

They will shrink a bit when cooking, and also drip some fat! When they're done, they should look like this:

Serving suggestions

Now. maybe you were just looking for meatballs - no spaghetti. That's a-OK. You can serve these as an appetizer with some dipping sauce: go for a traditional marinara sauce or mix it up and try a ranch dressing.

A bowl, a few toothpicks, and you've got a great appetizer or snack ready to go.

But maybe you're looking for that oh-so-good spaghetti and meatballs from your childhood or the italian restaurant down the road.

In that case - get yourself some gluten free pasta (most any grocery store carries it these days). Or, if you're going for grain free, my two favorites are these cassava noodles by Jovial over at Thrive Market or these sweet potato glass noodles that I get on Amazon.

If you're looking to stay more low carb, you can substitute in some cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles or other veggie noodles as your base instead.

You can certainly make your own pasta sauce if you want to and have the time and the bandwidth for that. There's a paleo tomato sauce recipe here, and a tasty spaghetti sauce recipe here that you could just leave the ground beef out of in lieu of meatballs.

Or, if you're a lover of all things garlic, like me, give this garlic butter tomato sauce a go.

Whatever sauce route you choose, it's hard to go wrong.

Fork tender, flavorful paleo meatballs, rich tomato sauce, gluten free pasta - now this is a 20 minute meal I can get behind!

Top with fresh parsley or basil and serve with a side salad for a complete meal. YUM.

Oh, and did I mention these paleo meatballs are kid tested and kid approved? After quite a bit of snooping, peeking, poking, and prodding, he finally got his own - and I think that smile and dimple speak for themselves!

Pro tips

• Use ground chuck in an 80/20 ratio for the best results and flavor.

• Make a big batch and freeze the leftovers for easy meal prep!

• Doing Whole30 prep? These Whole30 meatballs are perfect for your next round.

• Want to "fancy" them up a bit? Add some fresh herbs, cracked black pepper, and a tiny drizzle of olive oil into your meatball mixture.

Looking for more ground beef paleo recipes? Check out my roundup of 7 Paleo Ground Beef Recipes!

I may earn a small commission off purchases made through affiliate links in this post from Amazon and other sellers. This helps me continue to run the blog and keep providing you fresh content. Thank you for your support!

I may earn a small commission off purchases made through affiliate links in this post from Amazon and other sellers. This helps me continue to run the blog and keep providing you fresh content. Thank you for your support!