Apple Pork Meatballs Stuffed with Gorgonzola

Add all of your ingredients to your bowl and mix together until well combined. I do this by hand to make sure I have everything well incorporated and really it’s just a lot quicker and a lot more fun to get your hands dirty. I always use a larger bowl for this part – it seems to be easier than struggling with a smaller bowl and making a mess. I try to break up the eggs and mix the breadcrumbs over the meat before really digging and mixing the ingredients together. This way you don’t get clumps of breadcrumbs in the meat mixture. If that happens keep working the breadcrumbs into the meat to evenly distribute the ingredients.

There is something so fun about adding fresh and dried fruit to your meatball mixture. I have a good handful of meatball recipes that have fruit as a part of the recipe. Mixing meat and fruit for some reason always make me think of Thanksgiving – turkey and cranberries are such a classic combination that bring back so many family memories. 

This particular recipe is a little challenging to keep the apples in the meat since the apples are fresh. Also making sure you delicately wrap the meat around the soft cheese to keep the ball of gorgonzola separate from the meat – making sure you aren’t incorporating the cheese into the meat. There are a couple things you can do to help this, one is to make the gorgonzola balls in advance and let them set up in the fridge for a few hours before you start making your meatballs, two is to make the gorgonzola balls in advance and set them on a baking sheet in the freezer to fully set up and get frozen before making your meatballs. I don’t have as much trouble with keeping the gorgonzola in a ball and separate from the meat but if you are running into trouble or are a little concerned about working with this softer cheese there are a couple things you can do to help making working with the cheese easier.

Once you have all of your ingredients well mixed you can take a scoop of the meat mixture and flatten it out and you can place a ball of the gorgonzola in the middle of the flattened meat and roll the meat around the cheese until you have a nice little ball. I usually just eyeball the amount of meat I scoop out for each meatball. I have been making meatballs for years and I make a lot of different ones so it’s pretty easy for me to go be feel when making meatballs. If you don’t think you’ll get consistent results by eyeballing the amount of meat you use for each ball, you can get those handy meatballers or meatball scoops to help make the meatballs a consistent size. An important tip is to make sure you have enough meat to cover the cheese well.  

Cooking spray is also a must for meatballs – even for those meats with a little more fat in them. It makes getting the meatballs off the baking sheet easy. You would hate to put all of the effort in to making these meatballs and having them stick to the baking sheet. I also line my baking sheet with tinfoil just to make cleanup nice and quick. It’s definitely not necessary but if you’re short on time and need to clean up quickly this is a nice little extra step.

I would think if you don’t want to spend the time making little gorgonzola balls by taking gorgonzola crumbles you could take the gorgonzola and sprinkle it in the meat to make the meatballs instead of stuffing them with it. You would get a hint of the cheese flavor in the meat instead of a melty center.

These make great little appetizers or you could make a nice tangy apple cider vinegar coleslaw and make little sliders to serve to your guests or family for a nice fall dinner. I love serving these little balls straight out of the oven that they can pick up with a toothpick. Meatballs are my go-to food when we have company over or when I need to bring a dish to share. I think it’s always fun to have multiple kinds to share as well. I tend to make at least three different kinds when we have folks over or when I bring them to someone else’s home. Meatballs that make a meal in one bite are so much fun to share and your guests can try more than one too since they are smaller.

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