Recipe: Rice-A-Roni Meatballs

Looking for something fairly easy and a little different from your normal dinner? Here's a recipe I learned from my dad that my family also enjoys. All it takes is a box of beef-flavored rice mix, some ground beef, an egg, and some water. Read on!

First, take about a pound of ground beef, a box of beef-flavored rice mix, and an egg. Set aside the seasoning packet. We'll use it in a minute. Mix the rest in a bowl so that it looks something like this picture.

Form this mixture into small meatballs (if you make them too big, they're going to be crunchy in the middle instead of cooked through). I use a small cookie scoop to do this. Roll them around and drop them in a large skillet with a little butter or oil to brown on medium-high on all sides.

Once the meatballs are pretty much browned all the way through, you're going to need that seasoning packet. Mix it with the amount of water the box calls for in the original recipe.

Pour that over the meatballs and bring to a boil.

Cover and simmer for the amount of cook time the box calls for in the original recipe. I usually pull the lid off and flip all the meatballs over about halfway through so they cook through a little better.

Once the time is up, remove the meatballs from the liquid. I then add a little slurry (think a couple tablespoons of flour with about a fourth cup of milk or so) to the boiling liquid to thicken it up into a gravy we can pour over our meatballs.
Dish it up and serve. My kids can eat three or four of these some nights. I hope your family loves them just as much!

Do you have an unusual recipe you've made up from other standards? I'd love to learn yours, too!