Hungarian Meatballs – Fasírt

The best Hungarian Meatballs ever! Grandma’s – fasírt – meatballs recipe is the ultimate family comfort food! These crunchy meatballs are the favorite appetizers on cold collation platters at parties, weddings, or any holidays.

This is THE “Fasírt”… the Hungarian’s go-to meatballs, which you’ll literally find at every party on the cold platters, at weddings on the first appetizer course, or simply on any weekday lunch. It’s easy and inexpensive and you can make a bunch in no time. Check out the most popular Hungarian appetizers that you can find in these events.

Now, what I want to clarify, we don’t make our meatballs in tomato sauce. That’s not our traditional style. That’s called Italian meatballs, (which I adore!) and if you see somewhere saying Hungarian meatballs for that, it’s not accurate.

Hungarians love to eat meatballs, with delicious fluffy mashed potatoes, some good salad, or any type of homemade pickles. We have also some good traditional Hungarian soup recipes that include meatballs.

Now let’s see the recipe for this Hungarian Meatballs in the traditional way.

Ingredients You’ll Need

The most popular ground meats to make meatballs in Hungary are minced beef, minced pork, or both mixed together. I always make my meatballs with ground beef, since I don’t consume pork.

• Ground Beef – our main ingredient, which can be substituted with other minced meat.
• Garlic – fresh minced garlic is recommended, but it’s ok also to use garlic powder
• Onion – fresh chopped onion is recommended, but it’s ok also to use onion powder.
• Egg
• Breadcrumb – If you don’t have the breadcrumb in your pantry, follow a traditional way, how Hungarians used to/or still do this step.
  • Take 2-3 slices of bread and soak them in water for about 4-5 minutes. Squeeze the water out from the bread slices with your hand, and break it into extra small pieces. Add in the mixture. If you have dry bread leftovers in your pantry, this is the best way to get rid of them, without wasting anything.
  • Flour is another substitute
• Black Pepper to taste
• Salt to taste
• Hungarian Sweet Paprika Powder – Use sweet paprika powder. If you are interested to buy authentic Hungarian sweet paprika just click on the link and you can buy it from Amazon.
• fresh chopped parsley – it’s ok to use dry parsley
• vegetable oil – this is the most popular oil for deep frying all around the world, with Hungary, included

How to Make Hungarian Meatballs

1. Prepare your frying pan and vegetable oil. Set aside.
2. Finely chop the onion, garlic cloves, and fresh parsley into small pieces.
3. In a large mixing bowl, place all ingredients. Thoroughly mix the ingredients with your hands. 
4. Use your hand to shape the mixture into small little (1 1/2-inch) balls.
5. Preheat oil in your frying pan then place the balls in the pan. Fry them on both sides, for 3 – 3 minutes or until has a beautiful brown color.

Tips For You

• Oil your hands before forming the meatballs so the mixture won’t stick to them, or also you can use a small ice cream scoop.
• You can use more slices of bread ( 3-4 slices ) or breadcrumbs (4-5 tablespoons ), but make sure the mixture doesn’t get too dry and fall apart. Also the meatball it can get more like stuffing or a dumpling. So, be aware of this.
• Don’t overdo it with eggs. One egg should be enough for 1-11/2 pounds of ground meat. If it gets too hard to form a ball and falls apart, then add another one.
• If you want a healthier choice, you can bake these meatballs in the oven at 350F, for 25-30 minutes.

How to Store Hungarian Meatballs

When the meatballs colled down, they are ready to store. Place them in an air-tight container and put in the fridge up to 3-4 days. You can also freeze your hungarian meatballs up to 2 months.

According to USDA, it’s safe to freeze your meatballs before cooking up to 3 to 4 months. Whichever you prefer, both works.

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