The Gelatin Trick For The Juiciest Meatballs Imaginable
If you roll plain ground beef into balls and cook them, you'll technically end up with meatballs, but they probably won't taste very good. Meatballs made with only meat will come out tough and dry, because it's not just the fat in the ground beef that makes them moist. It's also the eggs, breadcrumbs, and milk. These ingredients not only trap the moisture in the meatballs as they cook, but they also prevent the protein in the meat from tightening, which is what will give them a hard, dense texture.
An easy way to prevent this from happening is to simply add the right ratio of breadcrumbs to meat, ideally 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs per pound of ground beef. Using fresh bread soaked in milk instead of breadcrumbs can also help. If you want your meatballs to be both soft and juicy, there's an even better method to increase the moisture: adding gelatin.
Gelatin makes meatballs extra juicy
If you ever try the house meatballs at Fatty Mart in Los Angeles, you'll immediately notice how juicy they are as soon as you bite into them. This isn't due to using extra breadcrumbs or more milk, but rather by adding gelatin, Fatty Mart owner and head chef David Kuo revealed on his TikTok. Inspired by xiao long bao, Chinese dumplings that contain a soupy meat filling, Kuo makes his juicy meatballs following a similar process. Instead of gelatinized pork, however, Kuo uses powdered gelatin bloomed (or heated) in hot chicken stock.
Once the mixture cools and gelatinizes, Kuo then pushes it through a strainer so tiny chunks of solidified gelatin can be evenly distributed throughout the meatball mixture. When the meatballs cook, the gelatin turns into a liquid, creating pockets of juiciness throughout the meatballs so they'll never turn out dry. For the best results, use one packet of gelatin bloomed in 1/2 cup of chicken stock for every 2 pounds of ground meat.
What happens when you add gelatin to meatballs?
Bread makes meatballs soft because it retains moisture and decreases the density of the meat, but gelatin works differently to accomplish similar if not better results. Most people know gelatin as the thing that gives Jell-O its jiggly consistency, firms up no-bake desserts, and stabilizes whipped cream frosting. More accurately, however, gelatin is just animal collagen. Animal collagen consists of the broken-down skin, bones, and tendons that are produced when meat is cooked slowly. It's the main reason foods like smoked brisket and pulled pork are so tender.
Mixing meatballs with powdered gelatin bloomed in chicken stock does two things. One, the animal collagen that makes up the powdered gelatin tenderizes the meatballs. And two, because you use chicken stock to bloom the gelatin, it traps a flavorful liquid in the meatballs. These two components combined ultimately result in the juiciest possible meatballs.