Kid Friendly Appetizer Recipe: Italian Meatballs with Kraft #FreshTake #cbias

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My son loves Italian style food! Spaghetti, pizza, meatballs, marinara sauce, he loves all of it! So when I had a chance to try out the new Kraft Fresh Take varieties I gave my son a choice of a couple things we could make with them. Italian meatballs won hands down.

We headed out Friday night to have dinner with friends. While we were out we stopped by Walmart to pick up the ingredients we needed to make the Italian meatballs. We were having a few people over for Mother’s Day, so I decided this would make a fabulous appetizer!

We found Kraft Fresh Take in the cheese aisle. It was tucked in with the shredded cheese. There are several varieties available. We decided the Italian Parmesan would be perfect for making our Italian meatball appetizer recipe.

You can check out our entire shopping experience here.

Here’s the recipe we used to make the meatballs. I love to make my own Italian sauce, but you could also make this recipe even easier by using a bottled marinara sauce.

Italian Meatballs Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of ground lean beef
• 1 package Kraft Fresh Take Italian Parmesan
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup of milk
• fresh ground black pepper
• 1~ 32 ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• pinch of salt

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350`F.
2. Mix the bread crumbs from the Kraft Fresh Take with the milk. Stir the two together and let them sit for a few minutes.
3. Once the bread crumbs have soaked up the milk mix in the ground beef, egg, and 1/2 of the cheese from the Fresh Take package. Reserve the other half of the cheese for sprinkling over the top.
4. Mix all the ingredients together. Mixing with your hands is best, but you can use a fork.
5. Roll the mixture into golf ball size balls, and place on a baking sheet. I have a deep dish pizza pan that works perfect!

6. Cover the pan with foil and place it in the oven to bake for about 45 minutes.
7. Remove the foil and bake or another 10 minutes.
8. While the meatballs are baking, mix together the tomato sauce, oregano, basil, garlic powder, and salt.
9. Simmer the sauce mixture in a large sauce pan over low heat.
10. When the meatballs are finished baking, add them to the sauce and coat them completely.
11. Serve the meatballs with a little sauce, sprinkled with the reserved cheese.

These were a big hit at our house for Mother’s Day!

The Italian meatballs are great on their own as an appetizer. You could also serve them over spaghetti, or as part of a meatball sub, with a little melted cheese on top. Yum! My son want’s to try that the next time!

Kraft Fresh Take made this recipe super easy! Instead of digging through my cupboards to find all the spices I’d need to make the meatballs, all I had to do was open the Fresh Takes pouch. My family loved the flavor of the Italian seasoning. I love that it made dinner so easy! We don’t have much time, especially during the summer months when my son has baseball 3 nights a week. I’m all for easy dinner recipes I can throw together in a hurry. Now I’m ready to try some of the other Fresh Take flavors.

Watch for the Kraft Fresh Possibilities Tour truck which will be making stops across the country from March through the end of July! To see if they are making a stop in your town you can check this website: Fresh Possibilities Tour

Right now through July 31st 2013 there is a coupon in especially marked chicken products. The coupon takes $1.00 off the price of one (1) chicken item with the purchase of Fresh Take. I think we might have to try Kraft Fresh Take with one of our chicken recipes next since this recipe was such a big hit!