Meatball Casserole
If you are looking for a comforting new family dinner, this homemade Meatball Casserole is the perfect choice. It features juicy, flavorful meatballs baked until golden, then smothered in rich tomato sauce and melted cheese. This low carb keto meatball casserole is always a massive hit with both kids and adults.
This recipe is inspired by the classic Italian meatball Parmesan subs I loved during college. To make it healthy and low-carb, I skipped the bread and turned it into a comforting, cheesy casserole with meatballs. It delivers all the nostalgic flavors of a classic meatball sub without the carbs.
Love this? Try my Keto Chicken Parmesan next! It is breaded with parmesan cheese, making it lighter than classic chicken parm but just as delicious.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe:
- Family-Friendly Comfort Food: A dish the whole family will enjoy.
- Low Carb & Keto: Packed with protein and completely keto-friendly.
- Meal Prep Ready: An easy make-ahead freezer meal perfect for busy weeknights.
- Hidden Veggies: A great way to sneak vegetables into dinner—kids won’t even notice!
- Sub Without the Bread: Tastes exactly like a meatball Parmesan sub.
Ingredients
- Ground Meat – I typically use ground turkey, but ground beef, ground pork, or ground chicken work as well.
- Ground Sausage – I use sweet Italian sausage, but hot Italian sausage is fine or a combination of the two. If using lean ground meat, the sausage helps keep the meatballs moist and flavorful.
- Egg – The egg is the binder in this, in addition to the grated parmesan cheese.
- Shredded Zucchini – You can’t taste it, and it gives a lot of moisture to the meatballs. Note: I do not squeeze the water from the zucchini for this recipe.
- Shredded Mozzarella Cheese – You can also use a blend of Italian cheese. Use freshly shredded mozzarella for the best melting texture.
- Keto Marinara Sauce – I like to make my own, but any pasta sauce or tomato sauce without added sugar is fine.
- Spices – I prefer to use dried onion, garlic, and basil in these. You can use Italian seasoning in place of the basil if you prefer the flavor of that.
- Salt & Pepper
How to Make a Meatball Casserole
Step One: Mix the Meatballs
Put all the ingredients for the meatballs in a large mixing bowl and mix. You can do this by hand or with a rubber spatula. Don’t overmix the meatball mixture or the meatballs can become dense.
Step Two: Scoop and Bake
Next, scoop the meatballs. A large cookie scoop makes this very easy. You should end up with 24 meatballs. Bake in a baking dish coated with cooking spray until they are almost completely cooked. I shoot for 150-155°F on my meat thermometer.
💡 Pro Tip: If there is excess grease in the casserole dish after baking, drain it completely before moving on to adding the sauce and cheese.
Step Three: Sauce, Cheese, and Broil
Top with sauce and sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top, and finish baking. For the best golden brown cheese on top, broil the low carb meatball casserole for 2-3 minutes, watching it carefully.
Top Prep Tip💡
You can make the Italian meatballs ahead of time, cook them until fully cooked, and then freeze the cooked meatballs in a freezer bag. Just place the frozen meatballs in the casserole dish, bake until thawed, and then top with the sauce and cheese. This easy meal prep idea is always a perfect meal on busy weeknights.
Storage & Reheating
Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. Reheat in the oven at 350°F until hot, or microwave individual portions.
Variations
- Fresh Herbs – If you have fresh basil, feel free to mix some into the ground meat mixture, add some to the marinara, or sprinkle on top after baking.
- Spice Swaps – Swap the dried minced onion and garlic for onion powder and garlic powder, or sub in Italian seasoning.
- More Dinner Ideas – This Sausage Parmigiana is also a great choice if you need more dinner recipes! Or for a vegetarian version, sub in cauliflower and try my Cauliflower Parmesan.
Common Questions
We enjoy it with a side salad, vegetables, or any of the main low carb pasta options out there, such as palm noodles and zoodles.
Our family’s favorite ways to serve this are on top of zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash. For any non-keto eaters, you can serve with garlic bread or a side of al dente pasta.
Alternatively, you can serve with a side of roasted broccoli or green beans or a green salad.
I use a large cookie scoop to simplify the process and make uniformly sized meatballs. Since there is no need to get up to your elbows in raw meat, this is a great task to get the kids involved in. Mine are pros at scooping low carb meatballs by now. Make sure to also check out the video below.
The shredded zucchini helps keep the meatballs moist and tender, and my kids never notice it’s there. If you’d rather use something else, chopped spinach works well too.
Absolutely! This easy meatball recipe also freezes really well! Go ahead and make a double batch and then next time you want an easy Meatball Casserole just thaw, dump into the baking dish, and cover with sauce and cheese. Meatball Parmesan in a jiffy!
I love to always have a bag of low carb homemade meatballs in the freezer for nights that I don’t want to cook.
Yes. Assemble the cooked meatballs and sauce in the dish, cover, and refrigerate up to 24 hours before baking. Add cheese just before putting it in the oven to reheat.
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Video
Meatball Casserole Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
Meatball Ingredients
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 lb Italian sausage
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella
- 1/3 cup grated or shredded parmesan
- 1 medium shredded zucchini about 1 cup
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp dried minced onion
- 2 tsp dried minced garlic
- 2 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp salt
Casserole Ingredients
- 1 cup marinara sauce
- 8 oz shredded cheese (I used a two cheese pizza blend of mozzarella and provolone)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400. Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray
- Combine all the ingredients for the meatballs and mix thoroughly. Make about 24 meatballs and put them in the casserole dish.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until the meatballs are cooked through. Carefully drain the cooking liquid from the casserole dish.
- Top with the sauce and cheese. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
- Optional: I broiled for 3-4 minutes at the end to toast the cheese. Watch it carefully if you put it under the broiler. The cheese can burn easily.
Notes
Nutrition
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Originally Published September 23, 2016. Revised and Republished September 8, 2025.
How many. ETbal,s are in a serving? I couldain’t find that anywhere.
3. It says at the top there are 8 servings and in the directions that this makes 24 meatballs. Enjoy!
Loved this recipe, though I made it with a few changes the two times I made it. (Comments on amounts are per recipe.) I used 1 lb beef and 1 lb pork, and I used fresh onion, garlic, and basil. I made one recipe with the basil, and in one I substituted fresh parsley for basil. I also added 1/2 tsp black pepper to each recipe, and sprinkled more black pepper over the top just before putting in the oven.
I used only 2 Tbsp of fresh onion. Any more would be difficult to incorporate. I used about 2/3 cup of shredded zucchini. That seemed to be plenty.
I used an open-style ice cream scoop to form the 28 meatballs and cooked them for 35 minutes to reach an internal temperature of 165 degF, then added the Rao’s sauce and a little less than 2 cups of mozzarella on top (10 more minutes in oven). We each ate about 6, so this recipe would feed 4 to 5 people.
My house smelled like a fancy Italian restaurant! Love that this is low carb. We could eat it once a week!
Can you make this in an instant pot?
Yes, use the instructions here: https://joyfilledeats.com/instant-pot-meatballs
When freezing, do you cook for the 30 minutes first, freeze, then basically heat them up with the sauce? Or do you freeze before baking?
I cook the meatballs first although I’m sure the other method would work too.
Omg so good. I had Chorizo on hand, so I used a lb of beef Chorizo and a lb of ground beef. Chopped up zucchini super fine and it made almost 3 cups! But you’d never even know it was in there. TONS OF LEFTOVERS! We’re not actually doing keto so I served mashed potatoes on the side and will use the leftover meatballs on spaghetti tomorrow. Thank you for this recipe!!
Spectacular! I made the recipe along with the keto marinara with only the minor modification of using ground chicken and mild italian chicken sausage and it was fantastic! I don’t usually care for lasagna, or other marinara heavy italian casseroles, but I do make them from time to time to keep the hubby and kids happy. But, I ate this up! The ground chicken made it lighter, the marinara was on point and even though I was a little upset because the cheese had gotten a little darker than I’d like, to my suprise the cheese had developed this new york style pizza taste to it that was phenomenal. I came here just to say thank you for publishing this recipe. Its so simple and so delicious!
Finally made these and they’re a hit even with the 10 yr old, had seconds and no clue about the zucchini. I only had hamburger meat on hand and my zucchini made about 2 cups.. Can’t wait to have more tomorrow. Might roast some broccoli as a side.
How can I make this so it doesn’t have as much sodium? Or what is the serving size? Hoping to give this to my 1 year old – but the sodium 😐
A serving is 3 meatballs. You can omit the 1 tsp added salt. The rest of the sodium is from the cheese.
These were delicious. I used beef and sausage. My husband hates zucchini but loved these. Thanks for this super easy recipe. I froze half of them since it is just the two of us.
What do you use to shred the zucchini with?
I normally shred it in my food processor but you can use any coarse cheese grater.
These meatballs are genius! So simple, fast to throw together and delicious. My husband and I don’t like sausage so I made them with ground chicken and ground turkey instead and they turned out fantastic. Adding to my rotation for sure! Thank you for the recipe! Can’t wait to have leftovers for dinner tonight.
Definitely a keeper!
Do you ‘brown’ the meatballs in a pan before putting them in the casserole and baking? can’t wait to try this tonight!! 🙂
Nope! I try to keep things simple 🙂
I love this recipe! Made it tonight for dinner. I only had grass fed beef (1.3 lbs) and turkey (1 lb), so I used that. Made 35 smaller meatballs. I baked them in the oven, removed them (and drained the liquid off) and browned the meatballs in a pan on the stove, then returned to the casserole dish, added the sauce and cheese, then baked for the remainder. They were awesome! Everyone loved them and no one had a clue about the zucchini! I’m freezing the left overs so I can enjoy the left overs next week. YUM!
I’ve been trying to email this recipe to myself but when I click on the “envelope” nothing happens.
Thank you for letting me know! I’ll contact the plugin creator and try to find a solution.
Thank you! Can you please tell me what the serving size is?
The nutrition facts are for 3 meatballs with sauce and cheese.
How many meatballs does it make total
24. It says it in the instructions.
Oops I missed that thanks
Cooked these tonight, my family’s comments where, you are kicking goals with this dish, delicious