Oven-Baked Whole30 Meatballs with Mom's Gravy
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 lb ground beef
- ½ lb ground Italian pork sausage
- 1 tbsp dried minced onion
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp ground black pepper
- ¼ tsp kosher salt
- ½ tbsp coconut aminos
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp fish sauce
- ½ tsp distilled white vinegar
Gravy
- Pan drippings
- 1 cup beef broth
- ¼-½ tsp Kosher salt (Start with 1/4 tsp and add more slowly if desired)
- ¼-½ tsp ground black pepper (Start with 1/4 tsp and add more if desired)
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp cassava flour
- ½ cup water
Instructions
Meatballs
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- In a bowl, mix together all meatball ingredients and roll into about 1.5″ balls. Mine usually makes 14 meatballs
- Take a few spoonfuls of cassava flour and spread out on a plate. Roll each meatball in the flour, making sure they are just lightly coated.
- In a medium sized skillet, heat up 1 Tablespoon of avocado or olive oil to about medium heat (You want your pan to sizzle when you add the meatballs)
- Add in enough meatballs that you’re not crowding your skillet, and brown on all sides. You’re not cooking them through, but browning them. This takes about 5 minutes per batch. Work in batches until all of your meatballs have been browned. If needed, add more oil to your pan if it gets dry during the process
- Placed browned meatballs into a casserole dish with a lid. Mine is a 2.5 quart and fits everything nicely.
Gravy
- Keeping your pan drippings after browning the meatballs, add beef broth, kosher salt, ground black pepper, and garlic powder. Bring to a nice simmer and allow to cook for about 5-6 minutes
- While that is simmering, mix 2 Tablespoons of cassava flour with 1/2 cup of warm water to make a “slurry”.
- Turn up the heat on the gravy and slowly pour in the slurry while constantly whisking. Your gravy will start to thicken. Remove from heat when you've reached a nice thick consistency.
- Grab your immersion blender and place it in the gravy and blend until the gravy is a nice thick creamy light brown color. Tip: You may have to tip your pan a bit to pool the gravy enough to get it to blend. Just keep your blender head flat to the bottom of the pan if you do this.
- Pour the gravy over the meatballs, cover, and bake in the over for 30 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and allow to rest about 20 minutes before serving (They will be piping hot!) Tip; Your gravy may seem thin when you remove the dish from the oven. It will thicken back up as it rests and cools a bit.
- Serve over mashed potatoes. Enjoy!