Baked Meatballs with Orzo in Roasted Pepper Sauce

Delicious! I used Impossible ground meat in place of the ground beef and then baked the meatballs instead of pan-frying so they wouldn't fall apart. It worked out well and the family loved the dish. I will make it again and experiment with add-ins like spinach, chard, or kale, or simply increasing the eggplant. Yummy!

This was a winning recipe for my family! Great flavors. I did read other reviews and decided to use a dutch oven and added some dollops of ricotta before baking. Delicious with some crusty bread!

This sounds great! Would love to make for a dinner next week, but one guest is strictly gluten-free so will need to fiddle with the ingredients...

Delicious recipe and appreciated the creators notes. Easy to follow recipe and easy to get ingredients. I split the meatballs half and half beef and pork and will double the amount of meatballs next time. I did have to add a couple cups of water to the sauce would not burn, per the creators suggestion. As ricotta comes in not too small containers and we don’t eat a lot, I added a few dollops on top under the mozzarella which added more creamy goodness. I considered added spinach or kale for a veggie as opposed to making a side veggie. Family gave it a thumbs up and it will join the rotation!

I made this for company last night and it was a hit! Will do again. I did put the browned meatballs in the oven for about 20 min as I wasn’t sure they would hold when I put them in the sauce. Everything came out perfect. Love the flavours!

I made this tonight and it was delicious—a wonderful cold-weather meal! The sauce has a complexity and depth of flavor that reads more Mediterranean than strictly Italian to me, which I loved—a fresh riff on spaghetti and meatballs. I saw that another reviewer used lamb in place of beef, and I imagine it must have been delicious with that twist!

I agree with other reviewers that the recipe could be MUCH more clearly written. There’s no discernible sequence to the ingredient list and it lacks some key details. Exactly how big is a “small jar” of roasted peppers, pray tell? Should I drain the liquid from them?

Other minor gripes:
1. I feel hoodwinked that this recipe tempted me with the allure a one-pot meal, yet required me to drag out my blender. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s a breach of the sacred one-pot contract.
2. To avoid the string of obscenities I threw in as extra seasoning, do yourself a favor and start this recipe in a Dutch oven, deep sauté pan, low-sided stock pot, or similar—rather than a skillet. The average “large skillet” is 10 to 12 inches in diameter, and mine is the latter, yet it was nowhere near large enough to accommodate the volume at play here. You’ll want at least three inches of depth on whatever pan you choose, and higher sides certainly won’t hurt you as long as you maintain a wide base to get a good sauté on the eggplant and accommodate the meatballs when they’re added. I transferred into my Le Creuset before the eggplant was even finished cooking. (The eggplant was a fairly good sized specimen, but certainly not gigantic; a measurement for the overall quantity required there would be helpful addition.) After that, it was smooth sailing!
3. I’m not sure if others are seeing the same thing, but when I view the recipe, there are strange, small, graphical ads that are interspersed here and there among the ingredients on the list, making it (even more) challenging to parse exactly what items belong in which section. This isn’t something I’ve noticed on Food52 before, and I dearly hope it’s not going to become the standard! It hampers the cooking process and mars the look of otherwise stylish, user-friendly web pages.

All in all: Give this recipe a shot—but give it a very thorough read first!

Amazing! I subbed ground lamb and it was so delicious. We loved every bite! 100% will make this again!

The idea behind this is great! As a professional recipe developer, I reworked this so I could actually follow/cook. Here's my version below (omitted orzo), hopefully it's easier to follow:

Meatballs:
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
2 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons ricotta
1 # ground beef
1 egg
1 teaspoon each: smoked paprika, dried oregano, cumin
1 garlic clove, minced or grated

Sauce:
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup chicken stock
12 oz jar roasted bell peppers, drained
14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes
Pinch salt

Assembly:
olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 large eggplant, peeled + diced into ½” cubest
salt + black pepper
5 oz grated mozzarella
fresh thyme, for sprinkling


1. Place the breadcrumbs and milk in a large bowl and mix well to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes.
2. Add the beef, egg, garlic, ricotta, cumin, oregano, smoked paprika, salt and pepper to the breadcrumbs. Mix just until combined, using your hands. Roll the meat into 2-tbsp size balls.
3. In a large oven-proof skillet, heat 3 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Brown meatballs on all sides, remove from skillet. This may need to be done in batches as to not crowd the pan.
4. While the meatballs sear, in a high speed blender add crushed tomatoes, stock, roasted peppers and tomato paste. Blend until smooth and set aside.
5. In the same skillet, add shallot and garlic, cook for 2-3 minutes until soft. Add 3 tbsp olive oil, then the eggplant cubes. Cook for 10 minutes.
6. Whisk in tomato sauce, salt, pepper. Nestle the meatballs in. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer on very low heat for 8 minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly. Test meatballs for doneness.
7. Once meatballs are cooked through, sprinkle with cheese and fresh thyme. Turn on the broiler. Place in the oven until the mozzarella is melted and golden, about 1-2 minutes.

I was really excited about this recipe, in fact started sharing it with friends before I made it. I read all the other comments about the ingredients and directions being out of order and I agree, it's written in an odd way but knowing that I was okay going into it. I thought this would be a super rich flavorful powerhouse dinner, but honestly it was all very bland and disappointing. I didn't save the leftovers.

Excellent weeknight meal, even though I messed up and added the eggplant to the meatballs, highly recommend!

This is such a tasty, cozy, dish that my family loves! We used frozen/defrosted meatballs added in toward the last 5 minutes of simmering then added dollops of cottage cheese before sprinkling with mozzarella and popping in the oven.

I did this recipe with my usual meatballs. It was very good, but I would halve or do 2/3 the herbs next time because it did come out quite strong.

I made this last night and it was delicious! I left out the eggplant because I'm not a fan, and the sauce was perfect. No critiques on the flavor! One critique, as another commenter stated: the ingredient list and recipe are not laid out/written logically at all. The directions seem like they should be separated into more than three steps. I had to go back several times and re-read things. Please consider updating.

I liked the flavor profile and one pot ease of this dish. However, two items of critique: 1) it took longer to put together than the 40min stated, primarily because I needed to brown the meatballs in two batches. Also 2) the ingredients as written today are listed entirely out of order. This makes it cumbersome to read and work through the recipe. Both are easy fixes and I hope Food52 will consider revising.

Made this tonight. Had to sub in fideo as I was out of orzo but this dish is quite good and will make repeat appearances on my table.

There are some ambiguities in your recipe - listed under the meatballs section you have smoked paprika, dried oregano, and cumin. Are these the "seasoning" you refer to? And if so, what is the "seasoning" referred to in Step 3? And what size can of crushed tomatoes - 14.5/15 oz. or 28 oz?