Skip to main content

Sweet and Sour Meatballs From Heinz

"This zesty meatball recipe is always a hit with any crowd. The basic, two-ingredient sauce can be switched up by simply combining Heinz Chili Sauce with any sweet spread such as peach jam, grape jelly or mango chutney. And, for the ultimate shortcut, you can use prepared meatballs."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

8 servings
Prep10 min
Cook40 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and lightly grease a baking pan. In a large bowl, soak the soft breadcrumbs in the milk for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the beaten egg, chopped onion, minced garlic, salt and pepper to the breadcrumb mixture and stir well. Add the ground beef and mix gently with your hands until just combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into small meatballs about 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) across and arrange them on the greased pan, leaving space between them.

  4. Bake for about 20 minutes until browned and cooked through. The thickest meatballs must reach 160°F (71°C) inside.

  5. While the meatballs bake, combine the Heinz chili sauce and red currant jelly in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir until the jelly melts and the sauce is smooth, about 5 minutes.

  6. Transfer the cooked meatballs to the saucepan or pour the sauce over them in the pan. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until heated through and coated.

  7. Serve the meatballs hot with the sauce spooned over the top.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,044 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Beef + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, milk, onion, garlic, pepper, sauce):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  3. Mangobetter flavor fit
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, milk, onion, garlic, pepper, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).