BBQ Meatballs made with ground beef, pork sausage and a delicious homemade barbecue sauce. These meatballs are perfect as an appetizer or serve them over rice for an easy dinner!
We love BBQ recipes! Some of our most popular recipes include our easy Crockpot BBQ Pulled Pork or Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken. These BBQ Meatballs are also simple to make, but can be easily served as an appetizer at a party or as a delicious dinner. Take them to a party and serve them on a toothpick – everyone loves them!
BBQ MEATBALLS
BBQ Meatballs are made with ground beef and pork sausage. Using both kinds of meat makes them so juicy and flavorful. The meat is seasoned with onion, salt and pepper and then mixed with an egg, milk and some oats to help hold them together.
The best part of the meatballs is the homemade barbecue sauce that coats them. This sauce is made with onions, butter, chili sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Of course, you can always save some time and just coat the meatballs with your favorite BBQ sauce from a bottle!
WHAT TO SERVE WITH BBQ MEATBALLS
If you serve the meatballs as an appetizer, you can just serve them all alone by sticking a toothpick in them. They are delicious that way!
If you are serving the meatballs for dinner, you can serve them over rice or along with Cheddar Ranch Twice Baked Potatoes, Mashed Potatoes or Skillet Potatoes. Add some Cole Slaw or a BLT Pasta Salad and some fresh fruit. And don’t forget dessert! You can’t go wrong with Easy Chocolate Cake or a No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake.
INGREDIENTS IN BBQ MEATBALLS
Ground beef – You will need 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef. You can use any kind of ground beef that you’d like – even if you use one with lower fat, there will still be tons of flavor because you will be mixing it with some sausage. You can swap out the ground beef with ground turkey or ground chicken if you prefer.
Pork sausage – Just a half pound of pork sausage adds so much flavor and juiciness to the meatballs. You can leave the sausage out and just use more ground beef instead, but the flavor won’t be quite the same.
Onion – You will need a half cup of chopped onion. I always buy chopped onions from the freezer section at the grocery store so that I have them on hand for recipes like this and I don’t ever have to cut any onions!
Salt & pepper – Just a little bit of salt and pepper will add a lot of flavor to the meatballs.
Egg – Make sure to beat the egg before combining with the other ingredients in the meatballs. The egg is what helps to bind everything together so don’t leave it out!
Milk – You will need a cup of milk to add some liquid to the meat mixture. Any type of milk will work!
Oats – A cup of rolled oats also helps to hold the meat together and keep it from crumbling. You can use quick oats or breadcrumbs as a substitute if needed.
HOMEMADE BARBECUE SAUCE
Onions – You will need just 1/4 cup of chopped onions to cook down and add flavor to the sauce.
Butter – Just a tablespoon of butter is needed to cook the onions. You can use olive oil instead if you prefer.
Chili sauce – A cup of chili sauce is the main ingredient in the BBQ sauce. If you don’t have any chili sauce, you can swap this out with ketchup, but the flavor won’t be quite the same.
Vinegar – You will need 2 tablespoons of white vinegar.
Lemon juice – A tablespoon of lemon juice helps to bring out the other flavors in the sauce.
Water – You will need 1/2 cup of water to help thin out the sauce to the perfect consistency.
Brown sugar – Just a little bit of brown sugar will sweeten up the barbecue sauce just enough to make it perfect!
Salt and paprika – Just a little bit of salt and paprika helps the other flavors to pop!
Worcestershire sauce – One last ingredient to bring a little more flavor to the sauce.
HOW TO MAKE BBQ MEATBALLS
START THE SAUCE
In a medium saucepan, cook the onions in the butter over medium heat for about 3-4 minutes. Add all of the other ingredients into the pan and whisk together. Bring to a simmer and let the sauce simmer for about 20 minutes. While the sauce is simmering, you can make the meatballs.
MAKE THE MEATBALLS
In a large bowl, combine all of the meatball ingredients well (I think it’s easier to use your hands for this part!) and then use a cookie scoop to form small balls. Place the meatballs in a lightly greased 9X13 pan.
Pour the sauce over the meatballs and bake at 350° for 45 minutes.
Serve as an appetizer or you can serve these as an entree over rice.
BBQ MEATBALLS
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs ground beef
- ½ lb pork sausage
- ½ cup onion chopped
- 1 ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- 1 egg beaten
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup rolled oats
Homemade BBQ Sauce
- ¼ cup onions chopped
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 cup chili sauce
- 2 Tbsp vinegar
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup water
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp paprika
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
START THE SAUCE
- In a medium saucepan, cook the onions in the butter over medium heat for about 3-4 minutes. Add all of the other ingredients into the pan and whisk together. Bring to a simmer and let the sauce simmer for about 20 minutes. While the sauce is simmering, you can make the meatballs.
MAKE THE MEATBALLS
- In a large bowl, combine all of the meatball ingredients well (I think it's easier to use your hands for this part!) and then use a cookie scoop to form small balls. Place the meatballs in a lightly greased 9X13 pan.
- Pour the sauce over the meatballs and bake at 350° for 45 minutes.
- Serve as an appetizer or you can serve these as an entree over rice.
Nutrition
📫 Save this recipe! Send it to your email! 📩
I consent to receiving emails from this site.
WHAT KIND OF OATS TO USE IN MEATBALLS?
Rolled oats are typically used in meatball recipes, but you can use quick oats instead if you’d like. The texture will be slightly different, but with all of the meat, you can’t really tell much of a difference. You can also swap out the oats with breadcrumbs.
BEST BBQ SAUCE
These meatballs are made with simple homemade BBQ sauce. If you need to save some time or you don’t have those ingredients on hand, you can definitely coat the meatballs with your favorite bottled BBQ sauce.
In the past, I have usually used Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce, but I’ve been trying some others lately. Costco has been carrying the Kinder’s brand which I really love because it is organic, has much cleaner ingredients, and I actually think it tastes so much better than many of the other varieties that I’ve tried. I prefer the Mild BBQ flavor, but they have some varieties that have more kick to them if you like spicy!
Blues Hog has a reputation of having some of the best BBQ sauce out there, but I have actually never tried it. It is also made with all natural ingredients and there are quite a few varieties to try!
MORE EASY APPETIZER RECIPES:
- Ranch Chicken Cheese Dip
- Best Chicken Strips
- Chicken Parmesan Bites
- Easy Lil Smokies and Meatballs
- Easy Big Mac Bites
- Cheesy Meatballs Bites
- Honey Glazed Chicken Wings
- Ranch Chicken Bacon Kabobs
- Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Dip
- Loaded Baked Potato Rounds
- Bacon Wrapped Chicken Tenders
- Easy Ranch Sausage Rolls
- Easy Mini Cheese Balls
- Bacon Wrapped Meatballs
- Texas Trash Bean Dip
- BBQ Chicken Wontons
BBQ Meatballs made with ground beef, pork sausage and a delicious homemade barbecue sauce. These meatballs are perfect as an appetizer or serve them over rice for an easy dinner!
Leave a Reply