My kids are in love with the pork meatballs I make with quality pastured meat I obtain from a local farm. This tasty, nutrient dense meat comes from happy pigs that are free to run around outside in the sunshine. Pastured pigs that are exposed to UVB rays produce lots of vitamin D which is stored in the lard.Â
These happy hogs compare with the unfortunate and miserable animals from huge hog confinement operations known as CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). Believe it or not, a single CAFO building housing confined pigs might hold 1,000 or more sows or 10,000 or more market hogs! These poor animals don’t even have enough room to turn around in most cases!
Do you want your pork to come from these animals? Â I sure don’t!
There’s no way I want one red cent of my food dollars to go to the companies that treat animals this way not to mention that this type of industrialized farm is detrimental to the environment and the food produced from it will not compare with the nutrition from hogs living outside in the fresh air and sunlight.
Marinated Pastured Pork Meatballs
When you make the effort to obtain truly pastured meat from happy hogs to make pork meatballs, you will be delighted to discover very little seasoning is required as the taste is fabulous and rich all on its own.
These pastured pork meatballs can be served alone with veggies cooked in butter (my usual way) or can be used for that occasional bowl of spaghetti and meatballs if you desire. Â Another idea is to slice them in half, add a homemade pizza sauce, melt some cheese on top and serve on sourdough buns.
Leftover pork meatballs are great to pack in lunchboxes the next day too. My problem is that most of the pork meatballs are gone so fast I don’t have hardly any leftovers. Â I had to practically arm wrestle my teenager to snap the picture above before all the meatballs were gone from the baking pan!
Enjoy this ground pork recipe? Try this recipe for breakfast sausage too.
Marinated Pork Meatballs Recipe
This recipe for pastured pork meatballs is marinated for optimum digestibility as practiced by traditional cultures.
Ingredients
- 1 lb pastured ground pork
- 1 egg
- 2 crusts sourdough or sprouted bread
- 1/4 cup soy sauce preferably unpasteurized and traditionally brewed
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Marinade
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup liquid whey strained either from clabbered milk, yogurt or kefir
Instructions
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Marinate ground pork in lemon juice/liquid whey mixture in a glass bowl uncovered in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Dry the meat thoroughly with paper towels or a clean dishcloth.
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Place dried out bread crusts in a food processor and pulse until you have evenly sized breadcrumbs.
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Place marinated ground pork in a bowl and mix in bread crumbs and egg with your hands. Add sea salt, pepper and soy sauce and mix again.
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Form meatballs with your hands slightly smaller than the size of a ping pong ball. Place meatballs on a stainless steel baking pan or a glass baking dish and bake on 350 F/177 C until browned and thoroughly cooked (about 40 minutes).
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Serve immediately.
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Refrigerate leftovers and reheat as desired.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sarah, is there any reason why you bake instead of frying them? Thanks so much for all your recipes!
Just made these last night! I like to add fish sauce and fresh parsley to mine – so yummy…
We don’t eat pork. I was wondering why you do as it’s considered an un-edible animal, kind of like eating a dog. A pigs natural diet is rotten stuff. We see pigs cleaning up the rubbish in India all the time. Thanks for the recipe though and will try it sometime with beef or goat meat…
Hi-I live in central Florida, what is the name of the farm your pastured pork comes from?
Thanks
I too use the combo of good ground pork and pastured ground beef. I make them all up into the balls, cook them and then cool and freeze in small baggies…. 4-6 a bag since it is just my husband and I. I am always ready for spaghetti and meatballs……… or a good meatball sandwich…… or as you said, just served with veggies. 🙂 I also have my homemade sauce in small containers in the freezer so all bases covered..
Another idea is use some of your frozen bone broth ad make a gravy for them. Again they can be served alone or on egg noodles or mashed potatoes.
Hello Sarah,
Looks delicious!! I was wondering too about eating fresh pork.
It was my understanding that it has undesirable effects on the blood.
The Farmstead Meatsmith said on one of the videos you posted on here that
you can marinate or salt any cut of pork. In the study posted on the WAP website
it said that cured or marinated pork did not affect the blood but fresh pork caused
clotting type activity. What are your thoughts on this?
We love our pastured pork! Thanks for the recipe.
Cannot wait to get home and try this!! We are on vacation visiting with family who do not agree with the real food concept. They refuse to read labels!! Anyway my 9 year old son was being given french toast with maple syrup and butter. He was sitting and looked at the label for the “maple syrup.” He exclaimed with horror that it had high fructose corn syrup. My father in law and son proceeded to have an arguement whether it was maple syrup or not. My son concluded his arguement that it couldn’t be maple syrup since that wasn’t even on the label of ingredients. So proud of my boy! My father in law argued about using common sense. My son said it wasn’t common sense to call it maple syrup if it isn’t even in there!
Haha, I hope my son ends up that way 🙂 We went to my Dad’s for a BBQ and I asked if he’d like to have some of our organic no-filler beef sausages (just some herbs added). He said no, that he likes his beef sausages from the supermarket. I looked at the list of ingredients and it said it MAY contain lamb, pork, beef, venison, etc, – ‘may’ – what?! They were also called beef flavoured sausages. Seriously… sigh…
Hi Sarah,
I read on WAPF’s site that pork should always be marinated in ACV. What are your thoughts?
Adrienne & Sarah,
I am wondering the same thing about the pork. Is there a way to soak/marinate ground pork in ACV? It seems easy enough with chops, roasts, etc. Thanks!