You’ve Got to Try Colin Fassnidge’s ‘Green’ Meatballs

We’re doing the best we can as this cost of living crisis continues to roll on, and one of the areas Aussies are looking to save cash is in their kitchens. Cheap and easy recipes can make a noticeable difference to your weekly costs, and cooking with ground meat is a popular way to save some cash. Enter: Colin Fassnidge’s recipe for Italian meatballs.

This recipe uses both beef and pork mince (or whatever meat type you prefer) and loads the meatballs up with herbs and breadcrumbs to make them a flavoursome and filling dish. According to Fassnidge himself, the dish is so good that he could be Italian, “I could be a nonna” – he quipped in the video. Whether it’s as good as my mum’s or nonna’s meatballs, I can’t say – but it certainly does look like a nice and easy recipe for a weeknight dinner.

Here’s how to make it.

How to make Colin Fassnidge’s green Italian meatball recipe

This recipe is called green meatballs because the breadcrumb mixture is loaded up with fresh herbs – as is the sauce. It’s worth noting that if you don’t have all the same herbs on hand, or don’t want to fork out for the fresh variety, you can always swap certain herbs out – as long as you’re sticking to that classic Italian flavour profile.

What you’ll need:

For the meatballs

• Breadcrumbs
• Cooked onions
• Garlic
• Sage
• Thyme
• Minces meat of your choosing (Colin uses 3 serves)
• 2 eggs

For the meatball ragu

• Onions
• Garlic (lots)
• Carrots
• Celery
• Tomato passata
• Bay leaves
• Thyme
• Marjoram
• Rosemary

Directions:

1. Take your breadcrumbs, onions and herbs and blend until everything is green
2. Mix your minced meat, eggs and breadcrumbs together
3. Make the mixture into meatballs
4. Keep in the fridge for a few hours to allow the herbs to infuse into the meat better
5. Cook the base of your ragu on stovetop – mix roughly chopped onion, carrot, celery and garlic in an oven-safe pan and ‘sweat it down’ before adding passata to the mix. N.B. Rinse out empty passata bottle with water and pour into the ragu
6. Add bay, thyme, marjoram and rosemary and allow to infuse
7. Put meatballs into sauce tray and cover with parmesan. Bake in oven for 1 hour at 200

You can watch the video in full below:

Yum.

If you want more recipes from Colin Fassnidge, we’ve shared a few other tasty options, like meatloaf and pork crackling, which are worth checking out next.

Lead image credit: Colin Fassnidge TikTok