I bought 2 packs of yellow sticker pork mince recently. There was a post on the Facebook group talking about some meatballs from Waitrose which had added vegetables and pearl barley. I thought these sounded lovely, so decided to use some of the mince to experiment. This is the result. They’re quite trendy you know!
Pork Meatballs with added veg and pearl barley
Priced at Asda using mySupermarket in February 2018
250g 5% pork mince, 500g/£2.79, £1.39
60g onion, chopped small, 500g/65p, 13p
A 70g celery stick, 55p a head, 5p
80g, carrot, grated, kg/50p, 4p
40g breadcrumbs, 55p/800g loaf, 3p
128g cooked pearl barley (raw is one third of the weight of cooked) 500g/50p, 4p
Half tsp each of salt and pepper
Total cost £1.68, per meatball (23) 7p, 5 meatball portion 36p
Total nutrition 551 calories, 63g carbs, 4g fat, 92g protein
per meatball, 24 calories, 3g carbs, 4g protein
per 5 meatball portion, 120 calories, 14g carbs, 1g fat, 20g protein
Fry the onion and celery until they are transparent. Place in a bowl and add everything else.
Squish it all together with your hands or a big spoon. Now form into balls about the size of a walnut. The ones I made weighed an average of 20g each and I got 23 from this.
Take a teaspoonful and fry it to test the seasoning.
I drizzled them with a tiny bit of oil and cooked mine in a medium oven for 20 minutes. Or you could fry them gently in a frying pan until cooked through.
What were the meatballs like?
These are delicious! We enjoyed ours with tomato sauce and spaghetti, the classic combination.
If you are feeding veggie phobes, you can’t really taste the veg in these, especially if you have a sauce with them.
Make them gluten free by using quinoa, rice or buckwheat.
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Variations on meatballs
The mince can be pork, beef, turkey or chicken. I haven’t tried them with quorn mince, but I would think it would work
Change the pearl barley to red, green or brown lentils, squashed chick peas, rinsed baked beans, quinoa or soya beans.
Swap the carrot for sweet potatoes, swede, parsnip.
Add curry paste or powder; Thai curry paste, red, green or yellow and use coconut milk in the sauce; for a chilli version, use squashed red kidney beans and a bit of chilli
You can use this same mixture in a giant puff pastry sausage roll and enjoy it for dinner or in a packed lunch
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