Broiled Italian Meatballs

1. In a medium bowl, combine chopped onion, ground round, bread crumbs, grated Parmesan cheese, evaporated skim milk, egg, Italian herb seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

2. With clean, dry hands, thoroughly mix together all the ingredients. Rinse your hands with water, but do not dry them. With wet hands, form mixture into 15 meatballs by rolling the meat mixture between the palms of your hands. Each meatball should be about 1 3/4 inches in diameter.

3. When you're finished rolling the meatballs, wash and dry your hands. Place oven rack 7 inches from the broiling unit. If using a broiler pan, remove it from the broiler and turn the broiler on.

4. Coat the broiler pan or rimmed baking pan with vegetable oil spray. (Make sure you are far away from the broiler while spraying so the spray doesn't ignite.)

5. Arrange meatballs on sprayed pan in 3 rows with 5 meatballs in each row. Place pan on oven rack. Broil meatballs for 5 minutes.

6. Using oven mitts, remove the pan from broiler. With tongs, turn meatballs over. Return pan to broiler. Broil 5 minutes longer. Using oven mitts, remove the pan from broiler.

7. Eat as is or add to spaghetti sauce, soups, stews, casseroles or on Italian bread with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese toasted in the oven or under the broiler. broiler. Skip the cheese if you want a lower-fat sandwich.

Is Ground Round or Ground Sirloin Better for You?

It all depends on what you want your end product to be – lean in fat or leaner than ground chuck but still somewhat juicy. 

• If you answered lean in fat, then you'd probably go with ground round (90% lean, 10% fat) and run the risk of having a dry piece of meat if you cook it to the proper internal temperature of 165 F (covering with sauce can help this).

• If leaner than ground chuck (80% lean, 20% fat) but still somewhat juicy was your choice, then ground sirloin (85% lean, 15% fat) is the way to go.