Albóndigas (Mexican Meatballs)

These are the best freaking Albóndigas in tomato sauce in the whole wide world! Mexican Meatballs have a special place in my heart and as soon as you try these juicy blobs of heaven you’ll immediately know why.

My friend Jessica is married to a Mexican and her husband’s family makes albóndigas all the time. They were kind enough to share the recipe with her, which she in turn shared with me. Everybody, please say: “Thank you, Jessica!”. About a year ago she made them for me for the first time and just like with my friend Christelle’s Mauritian Chicken Curry I could only describe them with one word: PHE-NO-ME-NAL!

It’s time to share this phenomenal Mexican Albóngias recipe with the whole world, so here we go:

Ingredients & Substitutions

• Ground meat – The original recipe from my friend Jessica calls for regular ground pork and regular ground beef. I’ve tested the albóndigas recipe with all kinds of combinations to make them more “on brand” for Green Healthy Cooking. After many tests, I concluded that to achieve both a healthier but still tasty and juicy version the best combo is 50/50. 50% regular ground pork and 50% lean ground bison of beef. All lean beef results in very very dry meatballs, don’t do it! If you don’t eat pork I recommend using regular ground turkey instead of the pork but be aware that it’ll simply be a lot drier. The pork IS essential for flavor and juiciness.
• Eggs – you need one as glue in the meat mix and four for hard-boiling. It’s tempting to skip hard-boiling the eggs but trust me, that’s the best part of the recipe. Biting into one of these Mexican Meatballs and finding a piece of egg is simply magical. Worth the extra minutes of cooking time.
• Cilantro – you know, if it doesn’t taste like soap to you. Even if it tastes like soap to you, try it with cilantro!! Cooked cilantro is much milder than fresh. If you really really reaaaaaaally can’t even fathom eating it, replace it with basil but know it would be a deadly sin in Mexico so don’t serve to a Mexican, hahaha.
• Onion & Garlic – use either a yellow or red onion. Both work great here. Garlic 100% use fresh, not dried.
• Mustard, Sea Salt, Pepper – I highly recommend fresh mustard but in a pinch you could also use dried, just make sure you use less because it’s much stronger. Season the meat generously as no amount of salt in the sauce later will be able to remedy bland meatballs.
• Yellow Potato – Jessica’s original recipe calls for bread crumbs but unfortunately, many breadcrumb brands contain MSG. I tried all kinds of different replacements, even making breadcrumbs from scratch but nothing tasted good or worked as well until I tried a yellow potato. A yellow potato has the right amount of starch to become like mashed potatoes. It serves as the best clean-eating “glue” ingredient ever to replace breadcrumbs in any meatball recipe.
• Tomato passata & broth – I’ve tried using diced tomatoes and because of their higher water content the sauce doesn’t turn out as silky smooth and thick. Tomato passata is much better but diced “works” of course. Chicken broth or beef broth work but chicken broth is my favorite.

How To Make Mexican Albóndigas In Tomato Sauce

It’s a little time-consuming but well worth your time. Trust me!

1. Hard-boil four eggs. My favorite way to hard-boil eggs is to bring water to a boil in a small saucepan and once boiling carefully add fridge-cold eggs to the water with a tong. Set a timer for 8 minutes. Once the timer goes off remove the eggs and simply leave them in a bowl on the counter to cool down. This way you don’t have to prepare an ice bath, which I personally find annoying. They finish cooking while cooling down and about 10 minutes out of the water they are cool enough to be able to peel them.
2. Chop your onion, garlic, and cilantro. Chop them super finely so your albóndigas stick together properly. If you have huge chunks of onion in your meat mix it’s super hard to form uniform meatballs.
3. Add all the ingredients for your Mexican meatballs to the bowl of your stand mixer. if you have one. If not use a large bowl instead. Only once you have all the ingredients in the bowl, peel the potato and grate it right into the bowl. We don’t want to peel or grate the potato ahead of time because it browns pretty quickly if not mixed into something. Use the dough hood of your mixer to slowly mix everything. Or if you are using a regular bowl, use your hands to mix everything.
4. Peel your hard-boiled eggs and cut them into quarters trying to cut in a way so each quarter has a bit of yolk in it.
5. Add the tomato passata and chicken broth to a large pan or pot for which you have a lid. I like first pouring the tomato passata into the pan, then adding chicken broth to the jar so I can get all the tomato out of there. Now bring this to a boil over medium-low heat. You want to achieve a consistent low simmer. If the temperature is too hot the bubbles burst and shoot tomato droplets out all over your cooktop or your clothes.
6. Now it’s time to form your albóndigas. I like using a large ice cream scoop so I can form uniform meatballs. With the ice cream scoop all of them are about the same size. You could also use a 1/4 cup measuring cup.
7. Have a large plate on hand to put your finished meatballs on. Add the meat mix to the palm of your hand and press it flat, then add 1/4 egg in the center and envelope the egg in the meat mix forming a ball. Make sure you don’t have any seams anywhere. Take your time pressing and rolling in between your hands until you have a smooth surface on the outside. If you leave the seams they will burst open while you cook the meatballs. You’ll still end up with delicious but a little less pretty albóndigas.
8. Once you finished forming all your Mexican meatballs add them to your slow-bubbling tomato salsa. Put on the lid, and let them simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.

What To Serve Albóndigas With

Serve them over Instant Pot Rice. Pour some Homemade Salsa Roja over them or simply a bit of canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. If you’re feeling ambitious, cook some Pinto Beans in your Instant Pot the day before and add that to your albóndigas as well together with the rice. The combo of all of this is….again….PHE-NO-ME-NAL!

How to Store & Freeze Mexican Meatballs

Simply put leftovers in an airtight freezer-friendly container and store them in the fridge for up to 4 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

They are great for freezing. To defrost all you have to do is place them in the fridge for 12-24 hours before reheating.

Other Mexican Recipes You May Enjoy

Having married a Mexican, birthed two Mexicans, and lived in Mexico for 4 years you may imagine how close to my heart Mexican cuisine is. I have plenty of authentic Mexican recipes like this albóndigas recipe on my website and here are my very favorites: The Best Mexican Recipes.