Keto italian meatballs? With only beef?

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maryadavies4667
maryadavies4667 Posts: 58 Member
edited November 2018 in Recipes
Now I'm not much of a believer in the keto diet (I believe in tried and true, not the diet of the week) but as my calorie limit gets lower, I've discovered I may have a minor problem that maybe a keto-style recipe might solve (so I can lower the calories).

My sister <3's my spaghetti and meatballs. I mean loves them and begs me for 'em. I use this recipe for the meatballs. As of right now, I can eat that if I'm careful, but it could get to the point that I couldn't (and make my sister upset). Was thinking maybe keto-style italian meatballs would be lower calorie so I can keep that in the dinner rotation. And yeah, I bake them on convect in the oven because that's just easier/less messy than frying (and saves me from getting burned by hot oil; I really hate getting burned, obivously), not because of calories really. I'd bake'em even if I wasn't watching calories!

Thing is we pretty much only have ground beef, and no other kinds of ground meat. So, any of you guys have any ideas?

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  • DW1Texas
    DW1Texas Posts: 131 Member
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    Nice little site with low carb keto friendly recipes.

    https://getfitlaura.com/recipe/low-carb-meatball-bake/
  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,168 Member
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    I don't do keto, so I may be a bit off, but couldn't you just substitute grated parmesan for the breadcrumbs?
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    I would usually just use ground beef. I always figured the bread-type-stuff in those kinds of recipes (meatloaf/casseroles/etc) were originally just to pad out the meat and save money..cutting it out never seemed to be a problem for me in meatballs or meatloaf.

    They'll be more keto-friendly without the bread crumbs, but not necessarily lower calorie (80/20 beef, which is the typical cut, has quite a lot of calories from the high fat content). The easiest way to drop the calorie content would be to go for a leaner ground beef (85/15 and 93/7 are commonly available, but significantly more expensive than 80/20) and/or a leaner ground turkey or pork. (note that the water content is usually extremely high in ground poultry, so it doesn't act the same a lot of times when cooking - so it may or may not work well).
  • maryadavies4667
    maryadavies4667 Posts: 58 Member
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    Thanks guys.

    The thing is, the reason I thought I'd research keto here (even tho I'm not getting rid of the noodles) is strangely with the same ground beef, spaghetti and meat sauce (and spaghetti noodles) is lower calories. Which makes me think it's mostly the bread crumbs that are adding calories. There has to be a alternative I can do until I reach my weight goals once I can't fit the spaghetti and meatballs into my diet anymore.

    I admit I do the spaghetti and meat sauce more often simply cuz it's less effort (So okay, I'm smartlazy).

    And hey, even if you're not doing keto, I see nothing wrong with using some ideas from there to cut the calories. Heck, I know we have had vegetarian meals once in a while..just because they are tasty and not expensive, not because we are vegetarians. Far from it, obviously!
  • RustArt5
    RustArt5 Posts: 2 Member
    edited November 2018
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    Instead of pasta noodles use zucchini or danikin radishes made into zoodles. You could add Italian seasoning in place of the bread crumbs. A higher grade of ground beef . This may be a different taste, but should be a help for you to get some veggies into you weight loss program.
  • Sunna_W
    Sunna_W Posts: 744 Member
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    Add an egg, chopped veggies (like onions, bell peppers) to the meat, make meat balls, add to the sauce and cook until done. Remove the meat balls and keep warm; make a half serving of angel hair pasta, drain and mix it in with the sauce and let it set covered for 30 minutes (it plumps up the noodles). Divide into portions on plates and add meat balls. You won't miss the extra noodles and it's super tasty.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    maryadavies4667 wrote: »
    Thanks guys.

    The thing is, the reason I thought I'd research keto here (even tho I'm not getting rid of the noodles) is strangely with the same ground beef, spaghetti and meat sauce (and spaghetti noodles) is lower calories. Which makes me think it's mostly the bread crumbs that are adding calories. There has to be a alternative I can do until I reach my weight goals once I can't fit the spaghetti and meatballs into my diet anymore.

    Are you sure it's the same portion size? Since recipes often default to using a round number of lbs of meat, I'm wondering if the recipe with breadcrumbs has the breadcrumbs in addition to the same quantity of meat as the keto recipe. A better comparison, if that's the case, would be to calculate with a smaller fraction of the recipe so that you are comparing the same weight or volume of final meatballs.

    Either way, you likely won't be able to fit the same portion of it that you are used to eating. If the result is too low volume for you, add a veggie course. And save leftovers instead of eating the entire recipe in one go.

    I'm also wondering about the 'spaghetti' if that was part of the keto recipe. Normal spaghetti noodles would definitely be a super no go for keto - if both recipes included the spaghetti portion, double check what the keto recipe is using.
  • maryadavies4667
    maryadavies4667 Posts: 58 Member
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    Okay, I'll spell it out from my recipe book. MIND, one of my goals is to not change things TOO drastically since WE ARE ON FOOD STAMPS AND THE LDS STOREHOUSE (if you don't know what that is, that's a food bank. We get out meat and canned veg and some milk and fresh vegetables from there, tho often they have fresh veggies that are very short date, so we have to eat them fast. But most of what we get that's canned is the Deseret brand, which outside of Utah, I think you can only find it in Church storehouses. They've made a effort to make the hamburger leaner though; I should know since I volunteered at a church ranch in Texas. If you think it's bad now, it was worse when I was growing up.) So I'm mostly working with what we have in the pantry. If things get better money wise that will change, but not yet.

    The meatballs are 371 cals a serving with what we have (and I try to make the meatballs as even as possible; I usually eat one meatball less than everyone else has, but I stick with that in case of error)
    The spaghetti sauce I use (and because I barely sauce noodles, I usually halve this in my log. Proved it by weighing other sauc-y things.) is 221 cals a serving.
    The pasta's (mind this is what we get from the church storehouse) 200 calories a serving (I do try to allow for the fact that it's 2 oz dry, so I usually go with 4 ounces cooked). So what I usually put down (sans any vegetables) is 682 calories.

    Now if you look at my spaghetti with meat sauce, the sauce (this time with the SAME hamburger in it that I'd use in the meatballs; I do NOT have a choice) is 501 calories a serving; again I'd halve it in my log b/c I actually put less than a serving on there. (Proved it with the scale) The noodles are 200 calories a serving. What I'd put down would add up to 451 calories.

    Do the math. I think it's something with the meatballs that adds the extra 200 calories, and I'm still blaming the bread crumbs. ^^

  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    If you remove the breadcrumbs and don't add extra meat to make up for the lower volume (so now a smaller portion size), it'll remove those calories. But 200 calories of bread crumbs would be the approximate amount for the entire recipe linked in the first post (not 1 serving)(unless maybe using a fried, toasted version like some croutons are instead of typical breadcrumbs like the ones listed in the recipe).

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