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.
Love this recipe! Definitely a keeper! It’s going to be good tomorrow too!
Delicious! Made these almost exactly as recipe states. (Substituted granulated garlic for minced). Everyone ate them-keto followers or not. They are gone!
So delicious! I’ve just started attempting low carb and this was the perfect dish for me and my boyfriend. He put his on a roll and said it was better than the sandwiches he always orders.
Love love love! A new family favorite.
How many meat balls is a serving?
3. It says at the top there are 8 servings and in the directions that this makes 24 meatballs. Enjoy!
These were excellent! I didn’t find the cookie scoop helpful and ended up rolling them myself. I used meatball mix..I’m only cooking for myself, but great tasting and plenty of leftovers. It’s a keeper for sure. Thanks for sharing!
This was delicious!! And easy! Enjoyed with a crisp green salad and was completely satisfied. Keto isn’t an easy diet to follow especially the first week, but this meal was perfect and I made extra for leftovers 😁
So delicious!! I used half the mozzarella and left out the salt to lower the sodium. My 4 year old is the pickiest eater and he loved them! Excellent recipe!
I’d absolutely make cloud bread for this. Low carb meatball subs…
Great idea!
Our whole family loved this recipe, young kiddos included. The zucchini added extra nutrition and moisture to the meatballs. We were all pleasantly surprised by how good and flavorful this dish was (using ground turkey and regular Italian sausage). We followed the recipe to the “t”. It was quite easy, too! Delicious! We’re going to check out your other recipes now.
The whole family loved it! I will be using this recipe a lot!
I made this the other night for my husband and I.
I had ground beef in the freezer and a pack of Italian sausages in the fridge that I just removed the casing from. I wanted to use the Zucchini, but my last one had spoiled so I left it out and served the casserole with cauliflower instead.
This was DELICIOUS!! My husband just raved about it, and there are plenty of leftovers for the week (Hubz works crazy hours so if he has to be very late, leftovers are the easiest thing to do because I don’t eat dinner without him) or I can freeze if we don’t eat them up.
Thank you so much for this recipe! I’ll be back for more. 🙂
Hi ..can you tell me how to insert the zucchini into this recipe please
You mix it into the meat.
Cooking from frozen…longer in the oven? Higher temp?
At what stage did you freeze it? Are the meatballs frozen individually? Or is the whole thing frozen in a casserole dish including the sauce and cheese? It will probably take a few minutes longer if you use frozen meatballs and fresh sauce and cheese. If the whole thing is frozen together it might be 10-15 minutes longer. I’m not sure exactly.
I had just separated and froze the meatballs. Do I need to thaw them out? What the best process?
Did you freeze before or after baking them? I freeze after baking but before adding sauce and cheese. Then I add them to the casserole dish still frozen and top with the sauce and cheese.
Awesome recipe! My hubby and I really loved this. We used 2lbs. of grass fed ground beef and it was still very flavorful! Hubby was surprised that we couldn’t detect the zucchini in it. Definitely making this again!
I am wondering if the 5 carbs are net carbs not total carbs, since you don’t list the fiber content TIA
The fiber content is under 1 gram so it doesn’t show up. There isn’t a difference between total and net carbs for this recipe.
Is the nutritional information for one serving?
Yes. 3 meatballs plus sauce and cheese.