Most meatballs contain breadcrumbs and even sugar, but that doesn't mean they're something we can't enjoy following a carnivore way of eating!
This recipe used pork rinds instead of meatballs and I even substituted some of the ground beef for liver.
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- Liver to substitute ground beef for if you wish
- 1 cup pork rinds
- 1/2 grated cheese of your choice
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Mix all of the ingredients together
- Roll int about 1 inch balls on a baking sheet
- Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes
You can easily make this recipe no spices if you wish- simply find pork rinds seasoned only with salt and leave out the garlic powder and pepper.
I smashed up the pork rinds in the bag before adding them and chose to use Parmesan cheese, but any other kind of cheese you'd like will work well also.
Organ meats are the most nutrient dense foods we can eat and I believe an optimal carnivore diet is not about just eating meat, it's about eating the "whole animal". However, if you're like me and did not grow up eating organ meats, you may be having a very hard time getting used to them. Dr. Weston Price traveled the world studying traditional cultures and documenting what they ate and markers of their health. In his 1939 book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration he discusses how many traditional cultures prized organ meats as the best part of the animal, sometimes with even religious like reverence.
The fact that most of us who've been raised in a Western culture don't have a taste for organ meats is sign that we've lost some connection with our intuitive wisdom about nutrition, but also that as we continue introducing them into our diets, we will regain a taste for them.
Right now, I am still at the point of finding creative ways to dress up organ meats and even "hide" them in other foods. For these meatballs, substitute as much or as little of the ground beef for raw liver as you'd like. I used chicken liver and substituted about a quarter of the ground beef for it. You may need to cut up the liver or even put all the ingredients in a food processor to get the liver to mix up. This is a great recipe to "hide" liver in because there is so much else going on with the pork rinds, seasonings, and sauces if you choose- check our my recipe for meatball beef stroganoff next!
