Tater Tot Hotdish Meatball

    It’s a staple in Minnesota – Tater Tot Hotdish is a casserole that uses ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, green beans and tater tots, so I turned it into a meatball!

    Tater Tot Hotdish Meatballs

    Prep Time: 45 minutes
    Cook Time: 45 minutes
    Servings: 23 Meatballs
    In Minnesota, we have a staple dish that is on the menu for so many events and every family seems to have their classic recipe. I’ve lived in a lot of places and Minnesota takes the win for casseroles and interesting shareable dishes. I don’t know if there is a place in the country that likes a potluck more than Minnesota. Our company Christmas parties only have food because we all bring in a dish to share.
    Tater Tot Hotdish is a Minnesota classic so I wanted to honor the native dish by turning it into a meatball. I take the staples of the recipe like mushrooms, green beans, and tater tots and whip them together in meatball form. You can make this recipe with the cream of mushroom sauce that I provide or if you’re short on time you can use a couple of cans of your favorite cream of mushroom soup. My recipe doesn’t include cheese but I have seen some out there that do so I may just have to write another recipe for those crazy cheese-loving folks. There are also some folks that include corn so that one is coming as well!
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    Ingredients

    Meatballs

    • 1 lb ground beef
    • 1 cup Italian style breadcrumbs
    • 2 eggs
    • salt & pepper to taste
    • 1 8 oz package baby bella mushrooms sautéed
    • 23 mini tater tots

    Cream of Mushroom Sauce Ingredients

    • 2 – 8 oz packages baby bella mushrooms
    • 1 small shallot or onion minced
    • 2 small garlic cloves minced
    • 3 tbs butter
    • 1 cup beef broth
    • 1/3 cup dry sherry
    • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
    • 1 cup Heavy Cream
    • 1/2 cup milk
    • 3 tbs flour

    Instructions

    For the Meatballs

    • Sauté the mushrooms in butter for the meat mixture – this should take about 5-8 mins on high.
    • After the mushrooms are cooked and cooled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
    • In a bowl combine ground meat, breadcrumbs, eggs, sautéed mushrooms salt and pepper.
    • Take a scoop of the meat mixture and form it into a meatball by rolling it around gently in the palms of your hands
    • Place your meatballs on a greased baking sheet and place in the oven. Place one mini tater tot on each meatball. Bake for 20 mins.

    For the Cream of Mushroom Sauce

    • While the meatballs are cooking you can sauté the mushrooms, shallots or onions and garlic in a pan. This should take about 5-8 mins on high. Add the dry sherry to the mushrooms and let them simmer until the alcohol is cooked off – this should take 2-4 mins.
    • Once your mushrooms are cooked add the flour and cook for another 2-5 mins.
    • Add the beef broth, heavy cream, and milk and let everything simmer until the meatballs are ready to come out of the oven.
    • Once the meatballs are out of the oven, with a stick blender or a food processor blend the mushroom sauce until smooth.
    • Place the mushroom sauce in a baking dish and place the meatballs on top of the sauce and cook for another 20 mins. Serve once the meatballs are out of the oven.

    This recipe is a little harder to make sure the ingredients are incorporated properly since there are sautéed mushrooms. Since they are sautéed in butter it makes them a little slippery to mix everything all together. It works better for me to mix everything by hand to help get the mushrooms distributed evenly throughout the meat. You can totally use a spoon but it may take a little longer to mix everything.

    Just be aware of this when working with the meat. If the mushrooms fall out as you are stuffing them or rolling them just pick up some and smoosh them in the meat – and yep, that’s my technical solution to this problem. If you add the mushrooms without cooking them they can add additional moisture to the meatball or the ones that are exposed during cooking can dry out – just like they do on pizza.

    You can stuff each meatball with a green bean. Tater Tot Hotdish if you’re not familiar is a mixture of ground beef in cream of mushroom soup with green beans topped with tater tots. It seems like every family has their own version of this recipe – some folks put corn in their Tater Tot Hotdish, some people add shredded cheese in there as well. The version I make doesn’t include either of those but it you’d like to try something different you can always add some cheese to the meat mixture or some corn to the meat mixture or both!

    Once you have all of your green bean stuffed balls rolled out you can place them on a baking sheet. I usually line my baking sheets with foil for an easier cleanup and spray it lightly with cooking spray. I don’t have a problem usually with beef meatballs sticking while cooking but a little cooking spray helps prevent that problem.

    There are a couple of steps to this recipe since there is a mushroom sauce involved and I like to twice bake the meatballs. One reason for twice baking the meatballs is that beef meatballs give off a lot of grease. I wouldn’t want to put these meatballs in the sauce to cook right away because it would make the sauce greasy and not very appetizing. Also when you cook these meatballs twice it gets the little tater tots on the top nice and crispy, just like a good tater tot casserole.

    If you can’t find the mini tater tots that’s totally fine. I have a hard time here and there finding them. You can always use the regular size tater tots. There will either just be a better ration of tater tot to meat if you use the bigger ones, or you can make your meatballs a little bigger to accommodate the bigger tater tot. Nothing about these meatballs are set in stone, you can adjust the recipe as you’d like to make them according to your taste. Just keep in mind that the larger the meatball the longer you should cook them.

     

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