Meatball Dumplings

My son called these meatball dumplings. He thought they reminded him of the dumplings we get from the local Chinese restaurant except they were Italian.

The best part of the meal for me was both of my children and I were sitting at the kitchen table making dinner. My son was rolling the meatballs, I was rolling out the dough and my daughter was filling the dumplings. It was fun having us all work on dinner together. Getting my teens to make dinner isn’t always easy but we turned up the music and laughed our way through these.

Tip: You can either use your own pizza dough, store-bought pizza dough or canned biscuits to make these. Just make sure you roll the dough thin enough to heat through.

Verdict:

These were a simple, little fun meal for us to make. The were really filling too. There were enough for dinner and lunches the next day! We made 15 dumplings from one batch with leftover meatballs that we just baked right along with the dumplings.

You can make these your own by adding ingredients your family would like such as pepperoni, olives, onions and peppers. Whatever you want!

We served these with a green salad to complete our meal.

Meatball Dumplings

Servings: 8
Time: 40 minutes
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 large egg
2 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder, divided
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, divided
1-2 cups of homemade spaghetti sauce or jarred sauce
1 lb. ball of pizza dough or 15 biscuit rounds
1/4 cup melted butter
Other ingredients for stuffing as desired: olives, pepperoni, onions, peppers, etc… finely diced

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (if using biscuit dough use temperature on package). Prepare two rimmed baking sheets by covering with parchment paper.
In a bowl mix together ground beef, bread crumbs, eggs, 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder, onion powder, dried basil and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese until mixed well. Form into 1″ – 1 1/2″ balls.
Section dough into 15-16 small pieces. Roll on a well floured counter to 1/4″ thickness and about 6″ rounds.
Place a heaping tablespoon of sauce in the center of the round. Top with meatball and cheese. Twist opposite sides up over the top of the meatball and pinch to seal all open sides. Place dumplings on baking sheet.
Mix melted butter and remaining 1 teaspoon of garlic powder. Brush the tops of the dumplings with the butter and garlic mixture.
Place pan in oven to bake for 15-18 minutes until cooked through. Tops and bottoms should be brown.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Serve with extra sauce and cheese as desired.

12 Comments Add yours

shopgirlanonymous says:

August 29, 2016 at 4:11 pm

My daughter, an incredibly picky eater, is a contisseur of cake pops and meatballs. She does not discriminate the meatballs can be in her spaghetti-o’s to her artisan spaghetti, they are all an equally delicious shape. I bet she would absolutely be over the moon for these!

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