Meatball Casserole (Easy, Cheesy & One-Skillet!)
Developed and tested by Robyn Conley Downs
on Aug 19, 2024 (last updated Jul 11, 2025) 
If you love cheesy meatballs but want something easy enough for a weeknight, this meatball casserole is your cozy new favorite. Tender homemade ground beef meatballs bake right in a skillet with marinara, fresh spinach, and bubbling mozzarella. All the comforting flavor of classic meatballs, no boiling pasta needed!
5 star review
“Sooooooo delicious. My four year old and one year old each had a giant bowl served over pasta. Great way to get the little one to eat some spinach, too!”
– Genevieve
Meatball Casserole In a One-Skillet Dinner!
This cheesy, tomatoey meatball casserole has quickly become one of my favorite recipes I’ve ever made – and that’s saying something! For this fresher take on meatball casserole, I leaned on the classic flavors of meatball parm subs (savory meatballs, fresh tomato sauce, and melty cheese), to create an irresistible one-pan meal. Now, I get that homemade meatballs might sound a bit extra, but truly they’re simple to make – all you do is combine ground beef (ground turkey, chicken, or pork works too), bread crumbs, minced garlic, parmesan cheese, and salt, then roll and go.
Sear the meatballs in a large skillet (the same one they’ll cook in later so, you know, fewer dishes!) then add your marinara sauce (love this easy homemade version) and fistfuls of spinach, top with cheese, and slide the skillet into the oven to cook off the meatballs and get the cheese all golden and gooey. Want to skip the searing? I recommend my ultra-easy, no chop baked chicken meatballs. As a side note, I intentionally left pasta out of this casserole, because I wanted to keep it light and give lots of options for serving.
So, if you want pasta, you can serve the casserole on top of your favorite cooked pasta. Orrrrrrrrr, go for gold by serving the saucy, cheesy meatballs meatball-parm-sub-style on toasty buns or with the ultimate garlic bread — hello yum! But for real, if you just can’t wait to dig in, I think scooping up meatballs with toasty bread straight out of the pan would totally be acceptable (I may or may know this works from personal experience).
Welcome to My Kitchen! Let’s Make Cheesy Meatball Casserole
Meatball Casserole (Easy, Cheesy & One-Skillet!)
Ingredients
- ½ cup panko bread crumbs
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ¼ cup finely chopped fresh basil leaves
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ pounds lean ground beef
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 2 cups marinara sauce
- 4 cups chopped baby spinach (about two big handfuls)
- ½ cup shredded part skim mozzarella cheese
- 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450F.
- In a large bowl, combine the bread crumbs, ¼ cup Parmesan, basil, garlic, salt, and egg, mixing well.
- Add the ground beef and gently mix until well combined.
- Roll the beef mixture into small meatballs about 1-inch in diameter–about 30-40 meatballs.
- Heat a large 12-inch high sided oven-proof skillet over medium high heat. Add the olive oil and the meatballs in an even layer, avoiding overcrowding. Cook for 5 minutes, or until browned on one-side, then flip and cook an additional 3-4 minutes (they do not need to be cooked all the way through at this point).
- Turn off the heat and add the spinach and marinara sauce, stirring gently until just combined, being careful not to break apart the meatballs.
- Cover with an even layer of the mozzarella and sprinkle evenly with 2 tablespoons of Parmesan.
- Cover with foil and bake for 10 minutes, then uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and lightly browned.
Sooooooo delicious. My four year old and one year old each had a giant bowl served over pasta. Great way to get the little one to eat some spinach, too!
Genevieve, yay, love that this was a hit with the whole fam! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review!
This was delicious and easy. I used ground turkey & dried basil but otherwise followed the recipe (with jarred marinara sauce). My teen boys gobbled it up and barely complained about the spinach. I served it with pasta, which helped fill them up. I don’t usually make my own meatballs, but I turned on an audio book & it went pretty quickly. I’ll make this again!
Sonja, yay, so happy to hear this one was a hit and that you were able to successfully swap in turkey. Bonus points for making your own meatballs for the first time and that it was a hit with the teen! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a reivew!