I’m speechless! YES! ME! I’m speechless with just how D to the LISH this recipe creation turned out. I have had this idea in my head for quite some time and I finally decided to give these fellas a try. They did NOT disappoint! One of my favorite soups of ALL TIME is French Onion. When I was a little girl, there was a restaurant in my hometown called Gibbs. It was a family restaurant that we liked to go to after church on a Sunday and they had the BEST French Onion soup. You could build your own with as much cheese as you could cram in the little cups and pumpernickel croutons. I decided to make these meatballs with pumpernickel bread crumbs as an ode to Gibbs. The flavor in these meatballs with the kiss of gooey Gruyère in the center was absolute PERFECTION! The most tender, juicy meatballs I’ve ever made hands down! The french onion gravy was on another level and the perfect topper for my creamy, mashed potatoes. This recipe is a keeper and needs to join your recipe box today!
Cheesy Stuffed French Onion Meatballs
6
servings20
minutes45
minutesIngredients
*For the Meatballs*
4 4 Slices Pumpernickel Rye Bread(1/2 cup Breadcrumbs)
2 lb 2 Ground Chicken
2 tsp 2 Dried Thyme
1 tsp 1 Salt
1/2 tsp 1/2 Pepper
2 tsp 2 Garlic Powder
1 tsp 1 Onion Powder
2 2 Eggs
1 1 Block Gruyère or Swiss Cheese
*For the French Onion Gravy*
1/4 cup 1/4 Salted Butter +2 Tbsp for Roux
2-4 2-4 Large Sweet Vidalia Onions
1-2 tsp 1-2 Dried Thyme
Salt to taste
1/4 cup 1/4 Cognac(Optional but HIGHLY recommend)
2-3 cups 2-3 Beef Stock
1/4 cup 1/4 Flour
Fresh Thyme for Garnish
Directions
- To begin, brush olive oil on your bread slices and toast. Add to blender or food processor and blend into bread crumbs
- Add all ingredients for meatballs in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Form into balls and cut your cheese into cubes. Place one cube in each meatball and push into the center forming the meatball around the cheese. Bake meatballs in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes, flipping halfway through
- Add butter to your skillet and place sliced onions in skillet with salt and thyme. Slowly caramelize your onions on medium/low for about 30-45 minutes. The longer you caramelize, the more depth of flavor you will have.
- Once you get a nice deep color in your onions, add your cognac and simmer for a few minutes to reduce and cook the alcohol out. Then, add your butter and flour. Stir well and add beef stock.
- Whisk beef stock until it begins to thicken and add baked meatballs to your skillet.
- You can serve your meatballs with mashed potatoes and your gravy right on a plate, or you can get fancy like I did and bake some cheese on top with some baguettes. I just added my mashed taters and meatballs with gravy to a crock, placed some baguettes and a slice of Swiss cheese on top. I baked for about 7-10 minutes until the cheese was melted and the baguettes were toasted.
- Then, it was time to DIVE IN! Look at that gooey cheese in the meatball?! These were sooo yum!
Notes
- You can use regular bread crumbs in these meatballs. That would work just fine.
- I doubled this recipe from my initial test. 1 lb of chicken made 8 meatballs so I wanted to ensure you had enough to feed a family or guests. I ate about 3 meatballs and felt full. They are filling and rich. My advice is serve them with a bitter green salad like Arugula.