Juicy little sheet pan meatballs that are salty, zesty, briney, and so so delicious. Pile them on tzatziki, spoon some punchy green sauce over top, and serve with a simple salad and crusty bread.
Sheet Pan Meatballs with Tomato Salad and Green Sauce
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This was delicious! Definitely will be a keeper. I made it with the tomato and cucumber salad and it was so fresh and full of flavor.
This post is sponsored by ButcherBox
We’re no strangers to sheet pan meatballs around here. We love to love them! Easy clean-up, no frying mess, but still oven-crisp goodness, and they’re always the easiest option for straight-off-the-pan sneaks.
Super juicy and deeply flavored thanks to some delicious briney green sauce – made with parsley, cilantro, walnuts, capers, garlic, and more – that will go not only inside but also on top of these little beauties. Serve them alongside some juicy marinated tomatoes, swoop them through tzatziki, douse them in that green sauce, grab yourself a buttery hunk of crusty bread, and let’s have the best meatball party in town, shall we?
Salty, Zesty, Briney Goodness
This isn’t just any old meatball. Not only is the quality of beef A+ (we’re using ButcherBox Grass-Fed Grass-Finished – more on that later), but that little green sauce magic concoction in the mixture brings a whole explosion of flavor with salty brininess from the capers, a little zest from the lemon, and our favorite punch of all punches, the garlic punch. It all just sort of swims together to bring maximum flavor to this little guy. It’s like a whole meal of tastes in one bite!
And you better believe you save some of that green sauce to put on top of your meatballs, and bread, and any kind of veggies. We’re nothing if not sauce hogs.
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A Word About This ButcherBox Beef
Okay, if you’re not on the ButcherBox train yet, we highly recommend you climb aboard! The quality of their meat and seafood is top-notch.
This is why we love them:
- They are a certified B Corp company, which means they are mission-driven to do some environmental good in this world and that is always something we can get behind.
- They source from family farms and are committed to humane practices, and have a focus on sustainability for their seafood offerings which we also feel really good about!
- Plus, sustainable and recyclable insulation and packaging whenever possible? Yes, please.
There is so much care put behind their product and it really shows. And, ultimately, this grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef is SO flavorful and cooks up beautifully.
ButcherBox has a deal going right now where you get two pounds of free (yes, FREE) grass-fed grass-finished ground beef in every single box for the life of your membership. WHAT.
Click here to learn more about the boxes (or add this deal to your existing membership)!
For burgers, for spaghetti, for meatballs, and everything else in between, this ground beef is such good quality and it is a total freezer essential. And it’s free in every box right now. Do not miss this deal!
How To Make These Meatballs (Sheet Pan FTW!)
Get your sheet pans and your food processor at the ready and let’s get down to business.
- Green Sauce. Pulse everything up in a food processor until chopped very finely (but not a paste). This is your flavor base! Transfer half of the flavor base to a large bowl for the meatballs and then use the rest make your sauce.
- Meatballs. Mix the egg, paprika, salt, panko, ground beef, and reserved flavor base green sauce in a bowl until evenly distributed. Roll into balls. Place the rolled meatballs on sheet pan, brush with olive oil, and bake!
Then serve those meatballs over creamy tzatziki, heavily dolloped with your green sauce, along with a pile of tzatziki and simple tomato salad, add a big torn-off hunk of rustic bread, and oof, what a satisfying flavor extravaganza you’re in for!
Will these juicy delicious little sheet pan meatballs absolutely steal your hearts? Yes. Does green sauce, just in general, make the world better? Also yes. Let’s get to it, pals.
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Sheet Pan Meatballs with Tomato Salad and Green Sauce
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
Juicy little sheet pan meatballs that are salty, zesty, briney, and so so delicious. Pile them on tzatziki, spoon some punchy green sauce over top, and serve with a simple salad and crusty bread.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Green Sauce:
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 cup parsley
- 1 cup cilantro
- 1/4 cup capers or pitted castelvetrano olives
- 1/2 cup walnuts
- juice and zest of a lemon
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- salt to taste
Sheet Pan Meatballs:
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup panko
- 1 lb. ground beef (the ButcherBox grass-fed grass-finished ground beef is top-notch)
Extras:
- 1 small baguette for serving
- 1 cup tzatziki (I used store-bought)
- 1 pound cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
- 1 clove garlic, finely grated
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon freshly minced herbs (I like parsley)
- salt to taste (I use about 1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt)
- 1 cucumber, sliced
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Make your tomato salad and throw in some sliced cucumbers too!
- Pulse the garlic, parsley, cilantro, capers, and walnuts in a food processor until chopped very finely (but not creamy / not a paste – you just want a fine chop! and you could do this by hand as well). This is your flavor base!
- Transfer half of the flavor base to a large bowl for the meatballs. Add all other meatball ingredients and mix thoroughly with your hands to combine. Roll into balls and bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Add the other half of the flavor base to a smaller bowl; add lemon zest and lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste to make your sauce. Add red pepper flakes for heat if you want. It should look similar to a loose pesto or chimichurri.
- Serve meatballs over a swipe of tzatziki, with a hunk of rustic bread and a scoop of tomato salad. And drizzle, dip, and swish all of it through that punchy green sauce! BIG, BIG FLAVORS! So good!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Mediterranean-Inspired
Keywords: sheet pan meatballs, meatball bowls, green sauce
Thank you to ButcherBox for sponsoring this recipe!
More Meatball Recipes We Can’t Stop Talking About
- Harissa Meatballs with Whipped Feta (the perfect SOS dinner)
- Chicken Meatballs with Peppers and Orzo (one of our fave combos!)
- The Best Swedish Meatballs (perfectly tender, perfectly spiced)
Filed Under: All Recipes Bowls Dairy-Free Dinner Healthy Lemon Main Dishes Meat and Chicken Quick and Easy Sheet Pan Spring Sugar-Free Summer Tomato
March 21, 2022
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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I always forget to go back and review recipes that our family has loved but trying to be better about it. This is the third recipe of yours I’ve made in the last couple weeks and this was so full of flavor. Will 100% be making again. And got a thumbs up from a 3yo and 5yo.
So glad your family enjoyed it!
Make thisif you’re hesitating! My family loves this meal and we’ve come back to this recipe repeatedly. Trying it for a big group gathering soon!
Hello! These look great! How long is this good for in the fridge? Would I be able to use it as a meal prep recipe for lunches? Thank you!
Will keep for 4ish days!
Ok I made this for meal prep (haven’t tried) but used the leftover green sauce as a baby potato marinade (adding a&p and some more oil) and roasted them with a grilled steak, side salad and some tzatziki and legitimately the best dinner I’ve had.
This is one delicious meal! Super quick, too! Love the olives in the meatballs, and so did my husband who doesn’t even like meatballs.
Just popping in to leave a comment, which I rarely do, but we make this about twice a month and our kids look forward to it every time (even the picky one).
I like to make it with ground lamb and have subbed the walnuts in the green sauce with whatever leftover nuts are kicking around my pantry. Always fantastic, in original form and when playing around with it. Thanks so much for sharing this one, a true gem!
This was amazing! Will be making it on repeat. Used pistachios in place of walnuts due to an allergy and used capers over olives since that’s what I had. Delicious!!
Would ground turkey instead of beef work for this recipe? Looks delicious!
Yes!
We make this often! Sooo good!
Do you have a suggestion for substituting the olives/capers? We have a strong aversion to them in the family! Thanks in advance:)
You can leave them out, just add 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt to replace the salt that you’d get from the olives/capers.
Made these with ground lamb – holy moly, so good!! Will definitely be on regular rotation.
Hi! What can I do if I accidentally added all of the green sauce ingredients before dividing half for the meatballs?
I’ve made this recipe twice (doubling it the second time so I could have easy leftovers), and this dish is absolute perfection.
I froze the meatballs, then froze the sauce separately in cubes and kept them in a freezer bag.
Fresh, leftovers- it just hits. I’m completely obsessed.
This recipe was great! Easy to make and also made great leftovers
About how many meatballs does this make? I’m not sure how big to make them?
You should get about 15-20 meatballs depending on size!
This was so delicious. The green sauce and tzatziki combo was perfect!!
How big should the meatballs be? Would using turkey affect the cooking time & temp? How long will leftovers keep?
We usually use about 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of meat when forming the meatballs. We haven’t tested this recipe with ground turkey, but I’m thinking the cook time should be about the same! Same temp too. Leftovers will keep for up to 5 days!
Hi – do you have any suggestion for what I can use in place of cilantro. We do not care for it in our family but this recipe looks delicious and I want to make it! Thank you!!
Delicious! I did a mixture of pork and beef for the meat… and I accidentally added the lemon juice, lemon zest and olive oil to the food processor all at once with the other ingredients and they still turned out nice and tasty! I would recommend this recipe 🙂
Spot on. Great chimichurri like sauce. Delicious meatballs. I could have eaten it all by myself. This will go into rotation. Yum.
Made this for dinner tonight and it was incredible! The flavor profile is 10/10. We can’t wait to make it again.
We don’t eat red meat. Would ground turkey work instead?
Absolutely!
I love this recipe. I could eat the meatballs and sauce alone, as a satisfying meal. I never leave enough for left overs. Frequent on our dinner rotation!
What would you recommend as an alternative to the panko to remain gluten free?
Gluten-free breadcrumbs, or almond meal should work!
This meal was so easy to pull together and delightfully delicious!! Thank you for sharing the recipe.