Smothered in a savory homemade marinara sauce, these cheesy baked meatballs are full of flavor and a satisfying keto-friendly dinner. Paired with a fresh green salad or low carb bread for a complete meal. With the right ingredients, low carb high-fat cooking doesn’t have to be boring or complicated.
Cheesy Skillet Baked Meatballs – Keto Friendly! – Pin It For Later!
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Keto Cooking Doesn’t Have To Be Boring!
We all know someone that is on a ketogenic diet. They eat salads, meat, and cheese right? Always the same thing, boring, bland food. This is how the Keto Diet is supposed to be, right? Wrong! Oh so wrong on so many levels. I admit I believed this too. I thought I would eat eggs and bacon for breakfast and salads and meat for lunch and dinner. This may be satisfying enough for some people that choose a low carb high fat (LCHF) way of life, but it just won’t cut it for me.
Creating and testing hearty, mouthwatering dishes that fit perfectly with a ketogenic diet is what we now do on a daily basis. Full flavor, exciting keto meals that keep my family on track to a healthier lifestyle is one of my biggest goals.
What Is The Keto Diet?
The ketogenic (Keto) diet is a very low-carb, high-fat diet that shares many similarities with the Atkins diet and other low-carb based diets. It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat. This reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis.
The keto diet lowers blood sugar and insulin levels and shifts the body’s metabolism away from carbs and towards fat and ketones.
Want more information? Check out our list of The 10 Most Asked Questions About The Keto Diet.
Cheesy Skillet Baked Meatballs – A Keto-Friendly Meal!
Now that we have the technical stuff out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. The meaty, cheesy, goodness that is baked in this skillet. Meat and cheese go hand in hand on the Keto diet. You are getting your protein intake from the meat and your fat intake from the cheese.
This recipe is not a NO carb recipe, but it is low carb and Keto friendly. See nutrition information below the recipe card.
Adjust Your Favorite Recipes To Fit Your Keto Lifestyle.
We started this meal by making a double batch of our classic 20 Minute Marinara Recipe. This recipe was created before we switched to a ketogenic lifestyle. We adjusted the recipe to suit our needs by switching out the sugar for Liquid Splenda Zero
to taste. I omitted the tomato paste and let it simmer a bit longer to reduce the carb count a little more. Compare the labels on your canned tomatoes also, look for tomatoes with no added sugar and fewer carbs.
By making a double batch, I was able to use half of the sauce for this recipe, and half of the sauce I stored in a mason jar to use later in the week for eggplant lasagna. Planning ahead and meal planning plays a big role in staying on track with any diet or lifestyle change.
Keto-Friendly Meatball Recipe
Ingredients:
Meatballs:
- 1.5 pounds ground beef (or ground bison)
- 1/4 cup Almond Flour
- 1/4 cup Coconut Flour
- 1/4 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
- 1 Large Egg
- 1/4 cup diced onion
- 1 Tbls Garlic Powder
- 1 Tbls Dried Parsley
- 1/4 cup Tomato Sauce – No sugar added (or 1/4 Cup 20 Minute Marinara)
- salt & pepper to taste
To make the meatballs:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In a large mixing bowl combine all ingredients together. Do not over mix! Mix just until everything is combined.
Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop meatball mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake the meatballs for 15 to 20 minutes until they are cooked through.
Cheesy Skillet Bake
3 Cups Marinara Sauce (20 Minute Marinara Sauce makes 3 cups)
Cooked meatballs
3/4 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
3/4 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Fresh Basil For Garnish (optional)
How to assemble the Cheesy Meatball Skillet Bake
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Place the cooked meatballs in a 12 inch Cast Iron Skillet in a single layer.
Cover the meatballs with 3 cups of your favorite 20 Minute Marinara Sauce
Top the meatballs with shredded cheeses.
Bake for 10 – 15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and golden brown and the sauce is bubbling.
Top with fresh basil.
Best served hot with a slice of Keto-Friendly Baked Garlic Bread or Keto-Friendly Biscuits.
Notes:
In this recipe, I use a mixture of coconut flour and almond flour for the binder. You can use both or just one of the flours in your recipe. You can also use 1 cup of grated crushed pork rinds instead of the flour. Your meatballs will be a bit more firm if you choose to use crushed pork rinds.
If you don’t have a cast-iron skillet, you can use a regular baking dish or a large oven-safe skillet.
Looking for more Keto inspiration, check out more of my Keto Recipes.
Since product nutrition information varies by brand, be sure to add your ingredients into a nutrition calculator such as The Carb Manager App to get an accurate macros count. You can find the app in the play store or apple store on your favorite device.
Cheesy Baked Meatballs A Keto-Friendly Skillet Meal
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 Lbs Ground beef
- 1/4 cup Almond Flour
- 1/4 cup Coconut Flour
- 1/4 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
- 1 Large Egg
- 1/4 Cup Diced Onion
- 1 Tbsp Dried Parsley
- 1/4 Cup Tomato Sauce – No sugar added (or 1/4 Cup 20 Minute Marinara)
- Salt & pepper to taste
Cheesy Skillet Bake
- 3 Cups Marinara Sauce 20 Minute Marinara Sauce makes 3 cups
- Cooked meatballs
- 3/4 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
- 3/4 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
- Fresh Basil For Garnish optional
Instructions
To make the meatballs:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- In a large mixing bowl combine all ingredients together. Do not over mix! Mix just until everything is combined.
- Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop meatball mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake the meatballs for 15 to 20 minutes until they are cooked through.
Cheesy Skillet Bake
- Place the cooked meatballs in the cast iron pan in a single layer.
- Cover the meatballs with 3 cups of your favorite marinara sauce.
- Top the meatballs with shredded cheeses.
- Bake for 10 - 15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and brown and the sauce is bubbling.
- Top with fresh basil. (optional)
Nutrition
Try our 25 Ground Beef Keto Recipes!
