This Is Probably The Reason Your Meatballs Fall Apart

There is a one kind of food that's wonderful with spaghetti, in sandwiches, or during a shopping trip to IKEA, per WMUR9. Meatballs!

Meatballs, by their very nature, are kind of funny. When you think about it, they're just spoonfuls of ground meat shaped into a ball. But oftentimes in life, the simplest foods derive the most pleasure.

A meatball, in actuality, is so much more than a spoonful of ground meat shaped into a ball. Their recipe construction allows for a multitude of flavors packed into each bite. Their shape allows for a perfectly firm exterior with a tender interior, and they can be cooked in a variety of different ways, soaking up each unique flavor as they cook.

Meatballs can be sautéed on the stove or grilled (via Weber). They can even be the star ingredient in recipes like Mexican soup. The most traditional way Americans may be familiar with meatballs is beef meatballs slow cooked in a marinara-style sauce, but meatballs can be made out of virtually any kind of meat. When cooking them at home, what's the secret to cooking the perfect meatball? Read on!

If you're making meatballs at home, you might have struggled with keeping them from falling apart while cooking. You might be following the recipe correctly but are still having trouble. At first glance, it's tempting to think that maybe the meatball's mixture needs more binding ingredients like egg or breadcrumbs, but that's not always the case.

According to Home Cook World, the issues with meatball consistency have nothing to do with the recipe and have everything to do with the size of your non-meat ingredients. Whether your recipe calls for diced onion, garlic, or any kind of vegetable, you want to make sure that you are dicing the ingredient fine so that it doesn't pull the meat apart. Home Cook World notes that if your non-meat ingredients are too large, they will keep the ground meat from binding together, and your meatball will fall apart. If this happens to you, don't fret! You can always turn broken meatballs into a meat sauce, but hopefully, finely dicing your non-meat additions will keep your meatballs together, so they come out tender and perfect.