This is Kenji’s recipe from food lab. Subs I made due to ingredients:
No buttermilk so did 50/50 whole Greek yogurt and whole milk
Just had wonder bread maybe should have used panko instead
Generally the meat felt too loose to me and just crumbled when I tried to move them.
Tasted amazing still.
by broccoli15
23 Comments
Not enough binder.
Whenever you’re making meatballs or meatloaf or any cooked meat that’s a mix like that, take a little bit and pan fry it first.
That will tell you if the seasoning is on point and it will also tell you how well it holds together.
*It was not kenji’s recipe from the food lab*
Add an egg.
A small amount of oatmeal helps. Or bread crumbs
Microwave? Meat? Seriously?
Egg and a bit if panko
Instead of yogurt/milk, you could try the traditional substitution for buttermilk…1 C milk + 1T lemon juice + 15 minutes
Lol it’s always funny to me when people change a recipe and then ask why it didn’t turn out like the recipe. The cognitive dissonance is strong.
r/ididnthaveeggs
Binder ratio was off. If they feel loose in your hand, just toss it back in the mixing bowl and add more crumbs. Not sure if his recipe incorporates dry cheese[s] but grated parm can help tighten up a loose batch.
Did you let it rest [after mixing] in the fridge? At least 30 minutes.
Did you dry the bread or at least pop it in the low oven a bit to dry out?
Those are pretty important steps to skip as that’s where the hydration [liquids] start getting absorbed to make a binding action with the dry [during the rest in the fridget]. Plus cold naturally causes the fats to also tighten.
You can pulse some steel cut oats [or any bland unflavored oats you might have] in a pinch. They already are dry, and they don’t affect the texture or flavor with great absorbant properties with the activated starch naturally in them.
Meatballs are more of a technique than a recipe.
As others have said, binder is definitely lacking. Also suggest letting your mixture rest 24 hours in the fridge before forming balls and cooking. Will help with binding and you get much more tender and bouncy texture.
If the meat felt too loose to you, it’s likely you had too much panade if anything. You really only need a very small amount of milk and bread added to the meat to make them more tender. Any more, and they completely fall apart and taste kind of mushy even when fully cooked.
People saying not enough binder are wrong – you can just take ground beef by itself, knead it until the proteins get all tangled up and it has the paste-like consistency of raw sausage, and those will hold together more than any recipe with added whatever.
Clown
https://youtu.be/nqfVoTMEosw?si=at052-4bSYfQgx5_
I’ve made the recipe a lot and my meatballs tend to be petty delicate; they don’t immediately crumble when you touch them but you have to get them out of the frying pan with a spoon not tongs, etc
The recipe I use calls for 1 egg, 1/4 cup milk, and 1/3 cup of bread crumbs per pound of meat. Has never done me wrong.
>Just had wonder bread maybe should have used panko instead
You eat Wonderbread?
Your substitutions are not the issue. Ignore the people giving you shit for that. A big part of cooking is using what you’ve got, and you’ll never learn that by following a recipe.
I would guess your issue is, or a combination of, not mixing enough, not resting long enough, not forming the balls tight enough. If you do those things correctly, you can keep a meatball together without eggs or bread.
Did you roll them into a ball and then toss them hand to hand to pack the meatball tighter?
I haven’t encountered this issue ever and I’ve put diced ingredients and even cheeses of all sorts into my meatballs before.
It would help if you roll your meatballs in your hands until you develop the proteins in your meat to keep them together. They will get a little sticky on your hands. I never use breadcrumbs … they are just filler and add nothing to the taste. Also, do not turn them too much. I hope this helps.
That is one of my favorite meatball recipes, but I don’t think the problem is just you. In my experience the meatballs are incredibly tender and almost fluffy- certainly not as dense as most meatballs. But that also means they fall apart more easily than most meatballs.
You definitely have to be gentle with them once they’re in the sauce. If you stick a wooden spoon down there and haphazardly stir away, you’ll end up with a nice spaghetti with meat sauce instead of meatballs.
The trick i use to measure how much breadcrumbs I need is to mix in. The egg and then breadcrumbs until all egg is soaked up and the mix is relatively dry again. If it’s still a wet mixture, the egg to breadcrumbs ratio isn’t right. It’s how my grandmother taught me after my meatballs fell apart the very first time as well
Egg in it next time