Ground beef or turkey is used in this simple air fryer recipe for BBQ beef meatballs, either fresh or frozen. These require very little time to prepare and cook. These are ideal for supper on the evening!

Preparation Time: Ten minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Twenty-five minutes in total

Servings: 5 servings

336 k cal in 336 calories

Table of Contents

Ingredients For Air Fryer BBQ Beef Meatballs

1 pound of beef ground
One-third cup of breadcrumbs
½ cup onions, chopped finely
Two cloves of garlic chopped up.
¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese
One egg
Worcestershire sauce, one tsp
Half a cup of barbecue sauce
Made-at-Home Barbeque Adding flavour (If you’re using a store-bought rub or seasoning, use one to two tablespoons of the rub).Apply your discretion.
2 teaspoons brown sugar or sweetener
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions For Air Fryer BBQ Beef Meatballs

Meatballs:

To a large bowl, add the ground beef, breadcrumbs, egg, Worcestershire sauce, onions, garlic, and seasonings.
Combine the ingredients with clean hands to make a single, big ball.
Form 10 smaller meatballs using a spoon.
Use air fryer parchment paper or spritz the air fryer basket with cooking oil to keep it from sticking. Fill the air fryer with meatballs.
Avoid stacking. Cook, if necessary, in batches.
Cook the meatballs on 360 degrees for 8 minutes.
Turn the meatballs over by opening the air fryer.
The meatballs should cook for a further 5 to 8 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
After taking the meatballs out of the air fryer, cover them with BBQ sauce.

Notes For Air Fryer BBQ Beef Meatballs

When making meatballs, lean ground beef is typically chosen because it releases a significant quantity of fat during cooking. You can still use 80% lean, but it will release a lot more than 93% lean. Once the meatballs have been slow-cooked for two hours on High or four hours on Low, you will need to drain the extra fat. Since you don’t want to disrupt the meatballs, proceed with caution. You run the risk of them crumbling apart because they aren’t cooked all the way through.
To add structure, add breadcrumbs and eggs. Additionally, you don’t want to overwork or over mix the meatball ingredients. Since using your hands makes it much easier to be kind than using a spoon or spatula, I prefer to use them. Over mixing will cause the meatballs to crumble.
If you’d like, you may use ground turkey and just change the cooking time.
Cooking frozen meatballs takes 15 to 16 minutes. To ensure doneness, always use a meat thermometer.
Use 1/2 cup of almond meal to make meatballs that are low in carbs. This isn’t the same as almond flour. Almond flour is pulverised finer than almond meal and is produced by blanching almonds, usually removing the skins. It’s frequently used in recipes for baked products like bread.Almond meal is usually coarser and still has the skins on. When baking recipes that call for breading, almond meal performs better. This recipe can be made with almond flour, however the outcome will be different. Further information regarding the distinctions between almond meal and flour can be found here.
Macros use Lakanto Golden monkfruit sweetener and Primal Kitchen sugar-free BBQ sauce. Feel free to determine your macros using the branded ingredients you want to use in the recipe by using the macro calculator of your choice.