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★ Why You'll Love this Recipe ★
This hobo meatball dinner casserole gets its name because it combines a medley of flavors and ingredients producing a hearty meal with plenty to feed family or friends.
Made with Whole Ingredients
Homemade meatballs are baked with potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage in a creamy sauce seasoned with a blend of herbs.
The casserole has a ton of flavor, is veggie-packed, and has plenty of protein as well. If you have a group to feed with a hearty appetite, this is the meal to serve!
Easy to Prep
This hobo meatball casserole is easy to prepare. It can be made ahead and baked when ready.
Freezer Friendly
Hobo casserole is freezer friendly too so you can prepare it ahead of time, freeze it, and bake when you need a big hearty meal!
Shortcut Friendly
This dish can be made with ground beef, ground turkey, or a blend of both. You can use fresh, frozen, or canned vegetables. Canned potatoes work as well and actually save bake time.
★ Ingredients You'll Need ★
Here's everything you'll need to gather to make this delicious casserole:
- Potatoes. Small yellow or red potatoes work well. You can use larger russet potatoes, just use 2 instead of 4 if they are very big.
- Carrots. Thinly sliced fresh carrots work best but you can use frozen diced carrots or crinkle cut carrots to save time.
- Onion. A large yellow or white onion works well.
- Cabbage. You can use a fresh-chopped cabbage or save time and grab a coleslaw mix that includes mostly cabbage.
- Olive oil. This adds nice flavor but you can use vegetable oil, avocado oil, or grapeseed oil instead if that's what you have on hand.
- Condensed mushroom soup. You can use cream of celery if you want to avoid mushrooms; however, the mushrooms really enhance the flavor of the meatballs.
- Salt and pepper to taste. You can add this on after baking or offer this at the table for dinner guests to customize their own plates.
Meatballs:
- Ground beef. Be sure to choose a lean ground beef to avoid your casserole becoming too greasy.
- Onion. You can use fresh grated or dried onion powder or minced onions.
- Bread crumbs. Unseasoned works best since we will add seasoning. Panko crumbs or regular breadcrumbs both work well.
- Egg. This acts as a binder for the meatballs so they hold together.
- Garlic. Paste or powder, your choice.
- Worcestershire sauce. This enhances the beefy flavor. You don't need much.
- Salt and pepper season the meatballs.
★ How to Make this Recipe ★
This hobo casserole comes together by layering ingredients in a pan and baking.
Here's a quick look at the steps, full recipe is further down.
- Combine meatball ingredients and form into balls.
- Season vegetables and add oil.
- Layer vegetables in a pan.
- Top veggies with meatballs.
- Top meatballs with cream of mushroom soup.
- Cover with foil and bake.
That's it. Easy!
★ Tips & FAQs ★
Choose a lean ground beef.
Higher fat content ground beef will make the casserole greasy. A 93%/7% blend is best.
You can also try using ground turkey which is naturally more lean. I like a 50/50 blend of ground beef to turkey.
How you slice matters! Slice the veggies — carrots, onions, and potatoes — about ¼ inch thick for even cooking.
You will need some seasoning to bring out the flavor of the veggies and meat. If you aren't sure how much to add, try starting with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Add more as needed. You can also use soup mixes. Beefy onion or onion are both great choices. Mix these into your meatball mixture.
Yes. Hobo casserole can be prepared ahead of time and then baked. Simply assemble, then cover with foil and refrigerate. Then baked before serving.
Refrigerate leftovers for up to 7 days. Reheat using the microwave.
This casserole can also be frozen in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
★ More Casserole Recipes ★
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Hobo Meatball Casserole
Equipment
- 9x13 casserole dish
Ingredients
- 4 small potatoes, peeled and sliced
- 2 cups carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 2 cups cabbage, chopped
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 10.5 oz can condensed mushroom soup or use cream of celery soup
- salt and pepper to taste
Meatballs
- 1 ½ lbs ground beef
- ½ onion grated
- ½ cup unseasoned breadcrumbs
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder or paste
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1 tbsp dried parsley optional
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Instructions
- Prep baking pan. Grease a 9 x 13 casserole dish with non-stick spray, butter, or oil.
- Make meatballs. Combine ground beef, grated onion, bread crumbs, egg, garlic powder, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Add parsley if desired. Separate into 1 tablespoon meatballs; about 48 small meatballs.
- Season vegetables. In a large bowl or save fdishes and use your casseroel dish, combine potatoes, carrots, onion, cabbage, and olive oil, adding salt and pepper to taste. Toss until well mixed.
- Layer vegetables, meatballs and cream sauce. Layer vegetable mixture in the casserole dish, evenly. Top with meatballs. Spoon condensed mushroom soup on top of each meatball evenly.
- Bake. Cover casserole loosely with foil and bake at 400˚F for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until potatoes and carrots are tender.
Notes
- Thicker potatoes and carrots will take longer to cook. To speed up cook time, slice thinly.
- Feel free to use onion powder or dried minced onions in the meatballs in place of fresh grated onion.
- Make you own cream of mushroom sauce, use my white sauce recipe and add diced mushrooms.
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