These low carb Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs have a melty, cheesy center and are nestled in my favorite marinara sauce. Perfect for any night you’re craving Italian, but want to watch the carbs!
Low carb meatballs are a staple in our keto diet. We eat them often for a few reasons – they’re easy, they’re a crowd pleaser, and there are a million ways to change them up.
We’re obsessed with our Mexican meatballs, keto buffalo chicken meatballs, and especially this keto meatball casserole.
These mozzarella stuffed meatballs might be a new favorite in my household, though.
The centers of these homemade meatballs are stuffed with a chunk of mozzarella cheese that gets all soft and melty in the oven. When you take a bite, that cheesy center is the BEST surprise you’ll have all day. 😉
Best yet, baked meatballs are so easy and there’s way less mess.
Ingredient Notes:
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Ground Beef – I’d recommend using 90% lean ground beef for these meatballs. Using a leaner beef will make for less greasy meatballs in the end.
Pork Rinds – I used to use almond flour regularly in my low carb meatballs, but I heard it through the grapevine that crushed pork rinds actually work better. I was really hesitant, but now pork rinds are my FAVORITE meatball binder. They add zero carbs and help hold the meatballs together without drying them out. No one will be able to tell the difference either!
Egg – This will help to bind all the meatball ingredients together with the crushed pork rinds, ground beef, and seasoning.
Heavy Cream – It will also act a bit like the egg as a binder in addition to infusing more rich flavor and moisture into the meatballs.
Seasoning – You’ll need some garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano to add a bit of extra flavor to the meatball mixture.
Mozzarella – You’ll need some small pieces of cubed mozzarella to put into the center of each of the meatballs.
Marinara Sauce – You can certainly make your own marinara if you prefer, but Rao’s is THE BEST jarred sauce I’ve ever tried in my life. It’s a little spendier than other sauces, but worth every penny. And it’s the lowest sugar sauce I’ve ever seen. Highly recommend. I’ve used the Arrabbiata version this time around. Love the spicy kick!
We use Thrive Market for a lot of our specialty ingredients and keto snacks or products. Their prices tend to be cheaper than the local stores and I love that you can so easily sort products by diet.
Like Costco, this is a membership site, but we find that it’s more than worth it based on the amount we save over the regular grocery store.
They have monthly or yearly plans. Check it out here.
- You can serve these meatballs as an appetizer or snack, or try them with some spaghetti squash!
- Nobody will know these are low carb! The pork rinds do an excellent job of replacing the usual breadcrumbs.
- If you love fried mozzarella sticks, you’re going to love these! You get that same cheesy bite.
Helpful Tools For Low Carb Meatballs:
- Cast Iron Skillet: You’re welcome to bake these on any baking sheet, but I prefer cast iron because of how evenly it heats and how well it maintains it’s heat. I use cast iron for most everything.
- Meat Baller: This isn’t strictly necessary for this recipe as you’ll be forming patties to place the cheese in and then smushing it all up into a ball. But! A meat baller is great for scooping up equal sized portions of meat each and every time so they all bake evenly.
How To Make Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs:
- Mix – To make the mozzarella meatball mixture, you’ll just add everything to a mixing bowl. Simple! I use my hands to get in there and mix everything together, but you can use a spoon if you must. Just try not to overwork the meat too much or you’ll get a tough meatball. Nobody likes a tough meatball. 😉
- Stuff – I form these into patties and stick a cube of mozzarella cheese in the center and then close the meat up around the cheese and make sure it’s all sealed in good.
- Bake – These mozzarella stuffed meatballs will take about 15 minutes to bake. The centers should have perfectly melty cheese.
- Sauce – Once your meatballs have baked through, spoon some warmed marinara over the top and dig in!
Serving Suggestions:
These meatballs are delicious with a side of roasted or steamed veggies, but if you’re really feeling like you need pasta, we have a few options!
Try our Instant Pot Spaghetti Squash or Garlic Parmesan Spaghetti Squash to make low carb spaghetti and meatballs.
You can also use a spiralizer to make zucchini noodles to serve with your mozzarella stuffed meatballs.
Palmini is a great low carb alternative to pasta. It’s made from hearts of palm.
FAQ’S:
You can keep any leftover meatballs (and marinara sauce) stored in an airtight container for 3-4 days. Reheat in the microwave for a quick meal.
Sure! You could turn these into pork, chicken, or turkey meatballs with no problem. Just switch out the ground meat and use all the same ingredients. The cook time may need to be adjusted, so just keep an eye on things.
More Keto Meatball Recipes:
- Keto Meatballs (with low carb BBQ sauce!)
- Jalapeno Popper Meatballs
- Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs
- Enchilada Meatball Casserole
Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef 90% lean
- 1 cup crushed pork rinds
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- 6 ounces mozzarella cut into 12 small cubes
- 1 cup marinara
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Add the ground beef, pork rinds, egg, cream, water, garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano to a medium mixing bowl and mix well with clean hands to combine.
- Separate the meatballs into 12 separate chunks and form each piece into a small patty.
- Place a piece of cheese in the center of each patty and carefully fold the edges up around the cheese to seal it in. Be sure to seal the meatball completely around the cheese so it does not leak out while baking.
- Place the meatballs in a 12-inch cast iron skillet or in a 9×13 baking dish that’s been sprayed with non-stick spray.
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove meatballs from the oven and spoon the marinara evenly over each meatball. Sprinkle with parsley just before serving.
Judy OBrien says
I knew these would be great so I doubled the recipe…..leftovers!!! These were wonderful! Served with spaghetti squash. Another fantastic recipe from Karly!
Karly Campbell says
So glad you enjoyed these and have enough for leftovers! 🙂
Thanks for the review!
Ellyn Goldberg says
What can I use instead of pork rinds. Just the smell makes me gag.
Karly Campbell says
Try 1/3 cup almond flour and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Should do the trick nicely. 🙂
cecelia harris says
Just made them and came out great, half beef and half pork. Didn’t measure exactly but loved your recommendation for baking in my cast iron frypan. I may never fry a meatball again! Thanks for the recipe.
Karly Campbell says
So glad you enjoyed them, Cecelia!
Nya says
Do you know what the carbs would be without the sauce?
Karly Campbell says
No, I’m afraid not. You could enter it into any online calculator though. It’d be easy to figure out. 🙂
Miss Chris says
Hi! I don’t have heavy cream on hand. Can I substitute whole milk or can I use something else?
Karly Campbell says
If you use whole milk, you’ll want to eliminate the water and instead use 1/4 cup of milk. This will change the carb count and nutrition info a bit, but the swap will work fine in the recipe.
Jenny says
Do the nutritional facts include the marinara or just the meatballs?
Karly Campbell says
It includes everything listed in the ingredients section. 🙂
Lan says
Hi Karly
This recipe looks good will probably be after New Year before I get then chance to make it. I am not sure I understand how to figure out net carbs. Is the formula; carbs – fiber = net carbs OR carb – sugar – fiber = net carbs. I have it stuck in my head that: carbs- sugar – fiber = net carbs, but knowing my head that is probably wrong. Could you verify for me? Can you take regular recipes and make them Keto friendly? Merry Christmas Lan
Karly Campbell says
Hi Lan!
To calculate net carbs, you subtract fiber from the total carbs. You wouldn’t want to subtract sugar, BUT you can subtract sugar alochols. If a product contains sugar alcohols, it’ll say so in the nutrition info with the carbs/fiber/sugar. 🙂
As for converting recipes to keto, you certainly can do that! You’ll just want to be sure you know the products you’re using and how they work – for instance, coconut or almond flour won’t be a 1:1 swap for wheat flour.
Hope that helps!
Lan says
Hi Karly
This recipe looks good will probably be after New Year before I get then chance to make it. I am not sure I understand how to figure out net carbs, is it carbs – fiber = net carbs or carb – sugar – fiber = net carbs. It’s stuck in my head carb – sugar -fiber = net carbs, knowing my head that is probably wrong. Could you verify for me? Can you take regular recipes and make them Keto friendly? Maybe? or not able to do this ever? Merry Christmas Lan
Sherry says
Have you ever just cooked them in a skillet? We are on the road and do not have an oven at this moment. These sound absolutely wonderful. Do you put them on anything or just eat them as is?
Karly Campbell says
Hi Sherry! I’ve never made these on the stove, but I imagine they’d work fine. We just top with marinara and serve as is. They’d be great as a meatball sub in a chaffle (cook the chaffle in a skillet too).
Sherry says
Thank you
Isabel says
I love your recipes which I like to print out for reference. It is extremely difficult to print a recipe because there are so many pages. Is it possible to isolate the recipe on a separate page so it can be printed by itself?
Karly Campbell says
Hi Isabel! There is a print button located in the recipe card that will print just the recipe for you.
Dina says
Have you ever tried this with fresh mozzarella? I have a container of the little ones in my fridge. Do you think they would be too wet for the filling? Thanks for all your amazing recipes!
Karly Campbell says
I haven’t tried it myself, but I think it’d be okay.
Steph says
Do you know how much protein this has? Trying to add it to my macros.
Karly Campbell says
It’s hard to calculate because of the pork rinds. I come up with 73g of protein, but it’s skewed due to the pork rinds.
Steph says
Ok thanks! I just needed a ballpark figure to get close to my macros. Made it tonight & even my picky eater loved it!
Carol says
These look so good! Thanks for the recipe. Can you tell me how you made them with almond flour before? I’m sure they taste good with pork rinds and might try it if I didn’t know they were in there.
Karly Campbell says
I don’t remember how much I used exactly. I would start with 1/3 of a cup and increase until the meat mixture holds together well. No more than a 1/2 cup, surely. 🙂
Karly Campbell says
Also, if it helps, here’s my low carb meatloaf with almond flour – it has other veggies added, so it’s not quite the same as meatballs, but you can see that I used a 1/2 cup of almond flour + 1/4 cup of Parm as a binder. https://www.bunsinmyoven.com/2015/09/28/low-carb-bacon-wrapped-meatloaf/
Nancy Grace says
Love ir
Robin says
I buy those little single snack bags, and use one bad for one pound.