Cooking with Grassfed Beef: Feta Meatballs

My husband and I recently bought a freezer full of grassfed beef from a local farmer. The day we brought all this meat home, I felt like the richest housewife this side of the Mississippi! Over 200 pounds of ground beef, stew meat, steaks, and other cuts — I was thrilled.

 

With 116 pounds of grassfed ground beef in my freezer, I have been exploring new recipes for tasty ways to cook the ground beef. We bought this meat in the winter, so it is fairly lean, even though the butcher added back into the ground meat all of the extra fat from our cow.

I’m finding that grassfed beef tastes different and must be prepared differently than conventional beef. So far, I’ve learned that our beef needs some extra fat added in, some flavor, and added moisture. (Check out some additional links at the end of this page for more ideas and tips on cooking with grassfed beef.)

Going with those three parameters (fat, flavor, and moisture), I have been “tweaking” some recipes that we used to use for conventional beef dishes so that they work well when cooking with grassfed beef. I was so happy with these easy feta cheese meatballs, and I wanted to share the recipe with you!

A little tip before we get started:
I like to mix up my meat in the mornings (or even the evening before) and refrigerate it all day. As my grandmother used to tell us, “You have to let the flavors marry.”
The meatballs will just taste better, and it’s an added bonus that you don’t have to deal with all this raw meat in the kitchen the hour before supper while you’re preparing the rest of the meal.

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Grassfed Feta Meatballs

2 lbs grassfed ground beef
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 T bacon grease
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp seasoned salt
2 eggs

Mix ingredients together — I used my hands to “squish” it all up. Form into 2-inch balls. If you have a 2-inch cookie scoop, it’s perfect for making meatballs. Place on a cookie sheet or cast iron skillet. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Turn oven up to 400 degrees F, and bake the meatballs another 5 minutes to brown them nicely.

(Do NOT overcook! Grassfed beef does not need to be cooked to death — just cook the meatballs through until they are no longer pink inside.)

When you pull them out of the oven, the meatballs will be sitting in a pool of hot grease from the cheese and bacon grease. Scoop up the meatballs and all that grease, and set them on a bed of rice or noodles. No need to make gravy — your rice or noodles are moist now and your dish is hot and ready to go!

Freezer meal option:
These (raw) feta meatballs freeze well. Dump them into your slow cooker sometime next week when you’re needing a quick supper. I can cook a dozen of them in 2 1/2 hours on high with a little olive oil in my slow cooker — perfect on a day when you’re running behind and need to come up with a hot meal.

Or, make up a bunch in advance (especially if you have 116 pounds of ground beef in your freezer!) and freeze them in portions the right size for your family.

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I hope that you enjoy serving these up for your family soon! We love dishing up these feta meatballs here at our kitchen table.

Resources and Links

The benefits of grassfed beef.

Cooking with grassfed beef: Keep the meat moist.

Don’t be afraid to cook with bacon!

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Advice, please! What is your favorite seasoning to use in ground beef? Do you have any tips to share for cooking with grassfed beef? Favorite grassfed beef recipes?? Thanks, friends!

..This post is happily shared with the Homestead Barnhop #154 and Nourishing Joy..