Why You Shouldn’t Bake Meatballs in an Egg Carton (and How to Do It Properly)
Kitchen hacks—I’m crazy about them. Explain to me how to easily cut thirty cherry tomatoes in half using two deep plates, or how to quickly separate egg yolk and white with a spa bottle, and I’m all ears. With this kitchen tip, I immediately had my doubts: baking meatballs in an egg carton? Why? I tried it out…
Actually, I’m not entirely sure what problem the egg-carton hack solves, but still, my curiosity was piqued. Season the ground meat to your own taste, shape it into balls and place them in the indentations of a clean cardboard egg carton: those are the simple instructions. Clean? How? You can’t really wash those egg cartons, and salmonella bacteria are always found on the shell of an egg, so this isn’t exactly very hygienic.
A Pat of Butter as a Consolation Prize
The egg carton with the meatballs goes into the oven, and that’s how the meatballs supposedly turn beautifully brown—without any extra fat, it is also claimed. Half-and-half ground meat is already fatty enough on its own, so that knob of butter needed for frying them seems like a bit of a consolation prize to me, but all right.
Let’s try it. Ground meat, meatballs, egg carton, oven. What do you think? A greasy mess. Much of the fat that runs out of the ground meat is absorbed by the cardboard, which turns into a whole new version of papier-mâché. Cardboard blobs from the carton stick to the meatballs. Not a success, so as far as I’m concerned: a funny experiment, a waste of ground meat and never again.
But here’s how it can work:
Making meatballs in the oven is, of course, a good idea in itself. The chances of your meatballs staying nicely round are much greater than in a pan, and they won’t fall apart easily, so you can add all kinds of exotic ingredients (olives, feta, fresh herbs, sun-dried tomato—use your imagination). An added benefit: while the food is in the oven, you can happily read the newspaper or watch the latest episode of Million Pound Kitchen. Use this basic recipe to experiment—but leave that egg carton with the recycling.
How to Make Oven-Baked Meatballs
- Knead all the ingredients together and shape them into golf-ball-sized meatballs.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Place the meatballs on a baking sheet (with a little oil underneath to prevent sticking) or in an ovenproof dish with some tasty vegetables, drizzled with a little oil. Good options: bell pepper, tomatoes, onion, garlic cloves, carrot and beetroot—all suitable for roasting.
- Put them in the oven and bake the meatballs for 20 to 30 minutes until golden brown and cooked through (depending on how large you make them).
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