🍖 Soutzoukakia
Soutzoukakia are oval Greek meatballs of ground beef spiced with cumin and garlic, browned and then baked in a rich tomato sauce until tender. The cumin gives them a warm, slightly smoky aroma, and the sauce turns thick and glossy in the oven. They are traditionally served over plain rice that soaks up the sauce.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 600 g ground beef
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 small onion, grated
- 500 ml tomato sauce (passata)
- 1 tsp sugar, 1 bay leaf
- 2 tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper
- 250 g rice, to serve
Method
- Mix the beef, half the garlic, the cumin, onion, salt and pepper and shape into 16 oval meatballs.
- Brown them in 1 tbsp oil and place in a baking dish.
- Simmer the tomato sauce with the rest of the garlic and oil, the sugar and bay leaf for 10 minutes.
- Pour over the meatballs and bake at 190 °C for 30 minutes.
- Cook the rice and serve the meatballs and sauce on top.
How to make it lighter
- Use lean ground beef (5–10% fat).
- Bake the meatballs instead of pan-browning to save oil.
- Serve a smaller portion of rice with a big salad.
History
In Greece the dish is known as soutzoukakia Smyrneika, 'little sausages from Smyrna', and it is usually linked to the Greek refugees who came from Smyrna (today's İzmir) after 1922. It is now a standard of Greek home cooking and tavernas.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →