Name: Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono - Giouvarlakia
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 5 people
Ingredients: 500 g beef mince; 150 g rice (medium grain); 1 onion (diced); 1 clove garlic; 2 tbsp olive oil; 3 egg; mint (fresh); dill (fresh); parsley (fresh); 1 1/2 ltrs water; 1/2 cup diced tomatoes; 1 lemon (juice); broth from the meatballs

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Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono – Giovarlakia, is a Greek traditional dish. This dish is made with pork and veal mince and mixed with a bunch of fresh herbs. The meatballs swim in a delicious Avgolemono sauce. For those who aren’t familiar with Avgolemono, Avgolemono is a sauce made from stock, lemon and eggs. This dish is perfect for a cold Winter’s day.

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Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono - Giouvarlakia

Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono – Giovarlakia, is a Greek traditional dish. This dish is made with beef mince and mixed with a bunch of fresh herbs. The meatballs swim in a delicious Avgolemono sauce.

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Servings 5 people

Ingredients

Meatballs

500 g beef mince
150 g rice medium grain
1 onion diced
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
3 egg
mint fresh
dill fresh
parsley fresh
1 1/2 ltrs water
1/2 cup diced tomatoes

Avgolemono sauce

1 lemon juice
broth from the meatballs

Instructions

Begin this recipe by combining the meatball ingredients together. Place the beef mince, diced onion and garlic, chopped mint, dill and parsley, egg and olive oil into a large bowl and knead the mixture.
Pour the water and diced tomatoes into a large pot and bring to the boil. Once the water has reached a boil, turn the heat down and add the meatballs (one-by-one) in the water. Put the lid back on and cook for 20-25 minutes.
After 20-25 minutes, prepare the avgolemono sauce. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk, then, add the lemon juice and whisk well. In the bowl, add a ladle of hot soup and whisk quickly. Add one more ladle and whisk again until combined.
Stir the avgolemono sauce into the pot with the meatballs and cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat, until warm but not boiling.
Serve immediately with some freshly cracked pepper and a nice piece of bread to soak up the delicious avgolemono sauce.

These meatballs are fragrant, they are mixed with fresh herbs, such as dill, parsley and mint. The meatballs also contain diced onion and rice. There are many different ways to cook giouvarlakia, in this recipe we have added some diced tomatoes, to give the sauce a beautiful colour. This however, is not needed. Another variation of this dish is to cook some rice in the stock we cook our meatballs in. Again, this is just a variation. For the perfect Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono, follow my recipe.

Rolling out the meatballs

combine all meatball ingredients together

These meatballs are full of flavour.

Cooking the meatballs

The meatballs are now cooked

This dish is one of my favourite Greek dishes, as it has a lot of my favourite things. For anyone who knows me, I absolute love lemons. So of course, I would love this dish. If you are a lemon lover, like me, you definitely need to try this dish.

Remove the Giouvarlakia from the pot

Once you have made the avgolemono sauce, re-add the meatballs.

The perfect Giouvarlakia

This dish can also be made with the meatballs wrapped in vine leaves – also know as Ntolmades, or wrapped in cabbage leaves – Laxanodolmades. Feel free to try out our Laxanodolmades recipe.

Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono