Ditch Marinara For The Sauce That Makes Ground Beef Meatballs Perfect For Cookouts

While your mind may go to meatballs served with bright red marinara sauce, meatballs have more culinary potential than you may think. Specifically, to make meatballs cookout-ready, ditch the marinara sauce for one classic grilling condiment: barbecue sauce. When barbecue sauce is added to meatballs, they take on a sweet and tangy flavor that perfectly complements the smoky tastes of the grill. 

To prepare BBQ meatballs from scratch, add barbecue sauce directly to the meat mixture with raw ground beef, spices, eggs, and breadcrumbs before forming them into rounds. This method is similar to making meatloaf with barbecue sauce. You could also make your favorite meatball recipe with ground beef, or save time by opting for frozen meatballs, and apply a simple barbecue sauce glaze at the end of cooking. 

While you can cook BBQ meatballs in the oven, pot, or slow cooker, the sugars in the sauce develop a nice caramelized exterior when cooked on the grill. The meatballs also get a smoky hint. Cook them on foil, in a tin, or on skewers over the grill alongside your other cookout eats.

There are a million types of barbecue sauces and barbecue sauce brands. In turn, adding barbecue sauce to meatballs presents many creative flavor opportunities. While your standard barbecue sauce brand will do, you can also experiment with regional varieties and styles. For a nice balance of deep molasses sweetness and smokiness, add your favorite Kansas City barbecue sauce. To add a more pronounced tang, use Carolina Gold barbecue sauce in the ground beef mixture. Or try an Eastern Carolina barbecue sauce, which typically has a stronger acidic vinegar flavor.  

While ground beef meatballs are a classic, you can also prepare BBQ meatballs with other types of meat, including plant-based ground beef substitutes, and other sauce additions. For instance, try making pork meatballs with Filipino pork barbecue sauce. Or give your cookout meatballs a sweet and sticky twist by mixing barbecue sauce with grape jelly and using it as a caramelized cooking sauce, finishing glaze, or dipping accompaniment. Really, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to barbecue sauce meatballs — just big flavor.