Chili Cheese Stuffed Meatballs

    I use my famous 3rd place chili for this recipe – more on that later… It’s a classic combination and it’s even better when you stuff a meatball with chili and cheese.

    Chili Cheese stuffed Meatballs

    Prep Time: 1 day 40 minutes
    Cook Time: 25 minutes
    Servings: 12 Meatballs
    My chili recipe all started with a really fun work Christmas party. I’ve been lucky enough to work for a lot of smaller businesses early in my career and honestly later in my career as well. We had our Christmas party at the owner's house and the theme of the party was a chili cookoff. At that point, I had never made chili but I looked up a bunch of recipes and chose ingredients from a bunch that I thought would make a chili that I would like to eat. I didn’t even come close to winning that day – I think it was rigged because the owner's mom won so… but it sparked my love for making chili.
    I kept making it and there was a chili cookoff at our local bar one winter so I entered. It was my one and only time entering a chili cookoff and I won third! Granted the first place winner made more of a broccoli cheese soup with some chili spice but nevertheless, that win made it so my 3rd place chili was born! You're welcome.
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    Ingredients

    Meatballs

    • 1/2 lb ground beef
    • 1/2 lb Jimmy Dean’s Hot Sausage
    • 1 cup Italian style breadcrumbs
    • 2 eggs
    • 2 tsp chili powder
    • 2 tsp Ancho chili powder
    • 3 cloves garlic minced
    • salt & pepper to taste
    • 12 frozen chili bites – see recipe here
    • 12 frozen Velveta cheese cubes

    3rd Place Chili Recipe

    • 2 lbs ground beef
    • 1 lb Jimmy Dean’s Hot Sausage
    • 2 can spicy chili beans
    • 1 can red kidney beans
    • 1 can fire roasted tomatoes
    • 1 can tomatoes with green chilies
    • 1 can green chilies
    • 1 can stewed tomatoes
    • 2 cans tomato sauce
    • 2 packets chili spice
    • 1 packet hot chili spice
    • 3 jalapenos diced
    • 1 orange pepper diced
    • 1 red pepper diced
    • 1 small onion diced
    • 1 heaping tbs of dark cocoa powder

    Instructions

    • You can find the recipe for my 3rd Place Chili here
    • Start by adding the chili to the silicon molds and freezing it - the quickest I've had these freeze were four hours but I tend to have them freeze overnight.
    • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
    • Once you have some frozen chili pucks, combine ground meat, breadcrumbs, eggs, sautéed mushrooms and season to taste salt and pepper in a large bowl.
    • Take the meat mixture and flatten in your hand. Take one of the frozen chili pucks and place it in the middle if the flattened meat in your hand. Take one of the frozen Velveeta cheese cubes and place it in on top of the frozen chili puck. Gently wrap the meat around the cheese and roll into the shape of a ball.
    • Place your meatballs on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 25 mins.
    Bowl of ingredients for the Chili Cheese Stuffed Meatballs not mixed

    This recipe is packed with flavor both in the meatball mixture and in the Chili Cheese stuffing. I add a lot of spices to the meat so that it can stand up to the spicy chili I make. If you have a killer chili recipe that’s won you some competitions – feel free to freeze little nuggets of that to stuff these meatballs with. 

    For the meatball mixture for this recipe I use half of a pound of Jimmy Dean’s Hot Sausage mixed with a half pound of ground meat. I like this combination because I think it tends to keep the filling that I use in better. This is especially good for meatballs that have more of a melty cheese – like the Velveeta I use in this recipe. The chili tends to stay inside the meatball during the cooking process too when I use this combination of meats. If you’re not into spice you can always sub out the Jimmy Dean’s Hot Sausage with the Regular or even the Sage variety if you’d like. 

    Raw Chili Cheese Stuffed Meatballs on a greased tinfoil lined baking sheet

    Since there is so much filling in these meatballs you don’t get a lot of them with only using a pound of meat total. If you are making this for a large family or a large group of friends you can totally double or triple the recipe so you can get more balls out of it. Just remember to freeze extra chili pucks and little cubes of the Velveeta cheese too.

    Frozen Chili pucks in a bowl next to frozen cubes of Velveeta Cheese

    I like using the frozen Velveeta for this recipe to make these Chili Cheese Stuffed Meatballs extra gooey. You can really use any cheese you’d like to make these meatballs – if you have a favorite you can go ahead and substitute it out. Depending on the cheese too you don’t necessarily have to freeze the cube before you wrap it up in the meatball. Most of my cheese stuffed recipes don’t have the cheese frozen before I add it to the center of the meatball.

    Chili Cheese Stuffed Meatballs served as a meatball sub with seasoned corn chips and a quinoa salad.

    I served these meatballs as a sub the first time I made them. I put a little extra chili down on the bun too to make these meatballs even messier. One of my dreams in life is to own a food truck that only sells meatballs and mostly sells them as meatball subs. I think it would be so fun to travel around the state or even country serving meatballs to folks.

    When the weather is right these meatballs make the perfect meal. I love the combination of spicy chili and creamy cheese all packed into a bite sized, or two bite sized ball. These are great for potlucks and you can keep them warm in a crockpot in some additional chili and serve them just like that or bring out some hot dog buns for meatball subs. You can always get some slider buns too to make Chili Cheese Stuffed Meatball sliders!

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