We all love fried mozzarella right? We took fried mozzarella to another level with this recipe for Mozzarella Stuffed Sausage Meatballs by wrapping the cheese in basil and hot Italian sausage! Like an Italian version of a Scotch Egg but with delicious melty mozzarella cheese and basil! And these are best served with a marinara sauce, so check out our Marinara Sauce from Scratch recipe to go with this one!
The Inspiration for the Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs
We have always been infatuated with the Scotch Egg, which is a soft boiled egg, wrapped in sausage, breaded and deep fried to perfection. But they seem pretty daunting to make in order to achieve that perfect runny center. If you have followed us for a while, you know we love Italian flavors and foods, so one day we were considering making Scotch eggs but we only had Italian sausage on hand. We were worried that flavors wouldn't work as well with the egg, and then it came to us to use Italian cheese instead of an egg to get that nice oozing center and serve with homemade marinara sauce for a fun twist on this recipe. And the Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs were born!
Smoke If You Got 'Em
We actually smoked the mozzarella in these because we recently got a Kamado Joe grill and have been obsessed with all things grilled and smoked lately. But honestly, these babies are delicious smoked or not, so don't worry if you don't have a way to smoke the mozzarella. If you do decide to go down the smoking route, place the mozzarella balls in foil and place on your smoker at the lowest temp you can manage (we did 130 degrees) for about 10 min. You don't want this cheese to actually melt, just add some flavor.
We hope you enjoy this Mozzarella Stuffed Sausage Meatball recipe! If you give it a try, leave us a comment below and tag us on Instagram @cooking_with_wine.
📖 Recipe
Mozzarella Stuffed Sausage Meatballs
Ingredients
- 12 balls mozzarella - ciliegine or the size of a large cherry
- 12 basil leaves
- 1 lb fine ground Italian sausage
- ¼ cup flour (more as needed)
- 1 egg whisked
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs
- Oil for deep frying (grapeseed is what we like)
- Marinara sauce
Instructions
- Heat a pot of oil to 340 degrees F. Make sure the pot is large enough that the oil doesn't come up higher than halfway.
- Wrap the mozzarella balls in a basil leave, then coat each mozzarella ball with a thin layer of the sausage making sure there are no gaps.
- Coat in flour, then egg and then completely coat in breadcrumbs. At this point it should be the size of a large egg or slightly larger.
- Fry - 3-4 at a time - until golden brown. About 8 minutes in total. If the sausage is thicker it may need more cooking time.
- Serve with marinara sauce and enjoy!
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