Frozen Packaged Meatballs Help!!

[HeatherFeather]

I have a bag of frozen packaged meatballs in my freezer that I need to use up. I picked them up when they were on buy one, get one free offer. The problem is, we don't love the meatballs. In fact, my BF refers to them as "dog food meatballs" and really doesn't want to eat them. I just can't stand to waste food, especially meat. There isn't anything wrong with them, we just don't love this particular type/brand. They are regular Italian flavored meatballs.

I need recipes/suggestions to use them in a way to hide their taste somewhat. Serving them as spaghetti & meatballs, meatball sandwiches, BBQ meatballs, or Swedish Meatballs didn't work out well enough, as the meatballs were the star ingredient in each case and really stood out. I am really hoping to find some sort of casserole or anything that will disguise the flavor of the meatballs. Any ideas?

[Sue]

You could pulse them in the food processor and then cover them with a heavy flavored sauce and let simmer for a bit. I think they didn't work out as meatballs with spaghetti because you still bit into them.
Maybe a bbq ground beef mix like sloppy joe?
Curry is an amazingly strong flavor. Any type of keema recipe should work.

[Felix4067]

Yup, I'd at least smash them so they're more like ground beef than formed meatballs, then use them in some kind of meat sauce. Lasagna would work...there are a ton of other flavours in there, and the Italian flavour will go nicely.

[Kchurchill5]

Been there. And agreed, I don't like them subs, but I have used them with a strong plum or Asian sauce; but, if they are already Italian flavored I understand.

I have thawed, chopped and added to:
Chili
Soup
Pizza, sliced or chopped

As Sue mentioned, grind up and make a new sauce

I have rough chopped them, and sauteed with mushrooms and onions and made a brown gravy. Served over a baked potato and rice. Pretty tasty.

They are also fun stuffed in a crescent roll as a snack. Cut in half, add some sauce and cheese and roll up. You can use pizza dough or dinner rolls too. Greats snacks and easy. They freeze well too. You can do any flavors with that.

How about chopping them, add to a saute of cabbage and onion and make a mini hand pie; or whatever you want to call them. Serve with gravy, but simply made with beef gravy, Nothing heavy.

Shephards Pie?

A few ideas

[Kchurchill5]

How about ravioli ... Add some sauteed mushrooms, onions, ricotta, and the beef ground up. Stuff in wontons and ravioli. Serve with a fresh tomato sauce. No one will know.

Add some basil, red pepper flakes, maybe more garlic. taste and check. You could even add spinach.

Fresh and homemade. My friends would love it.

[Shadows1]

Go mexican, chop them up and add taco seasonings and serve in tacos, burritos, etc. Mexican seasoning can cover up so pretty nasting tasting meat.

[Dissie]

I would chop them up, and use them in stuffed bell peppers. Lots of different flavors in there. Sauce up the meat and let it simmer with fresh onions and bell peppers to help flavor it, then add rice and bake in bells. I bet it would be good. Add fresh garlic too, that will help give them a new flavor. Of course, add new spices to help spice the sauce up. Good luck. LEt us know what you did with them.

[HeatherFeather]

Ok I combined several of the suggestions above and made a sort of lasagna-like casserole. First I cooked the meatballs by themselves in homemade sauce to hopefully let the sauce soak in a bit to the meat.

Then using the ravioli/lasagna type concept, I layered cooked pasta noodles (which I mixed with some parmesan cheese, a touch of butter, olive oil, and black pepper,plus a couple of eggs) into a casserole dish, topped with some cottage cheese (didn't have ricotta, hope my BF doesn't notice - yikes), then topped with my meatball sauce mixture. Baking it like a baked ziti/lasagna, and will add provolone cheese at the end to melt over the top. I am hoping the flavors of the sauce, as well as the cheeses and black pepper will hide the meatball taste somewhat.

I thought about chopping up the meatballs, but then I thought it might be better to leave them whole for easier removal if needed. I worried that we might not like having those meatballs running through every bite. Now I am worried that I should have - we'll see how it turns out. We are having a very late dinner tonight, as it is still in the oven and won't be done for a little while yet.

I love the idea of stuffed peppers as well - I might use the last of the meatballs I still have in the freezer to make a small batch of them, perhaps using curry and other ingredients to make it more like a keema stuffing for some variety. I will probably not get my BF or DD to eat them, but they could be easily portioned out into single servings to freeze and eat as lunch for myself.

Thanks everyone for the great ideas! Hope dinner turns out.