Sheet Pan Sweet and Sour Meatballs with Roasted Potatoes and Broccoli
Dinner is served on ONE sheet pan with this simple and super tasty sweet and sour sheet pan meatballs recipe loaded with roasted potatoes and broccoli!
In the land of meals that are easy to make and taste amazing…but may not win you any gourmet food of the year awards…these sheet pan meatballs reign supreme. And I’m all about reigning supreme, especially if it saves my sanity from slaving over a fussy meal for hours (and spending even longer to clean up).
I’ll take my meatballs and sanity, thankyouverymuch, and leave the ritzy, glitzy dinners for someone else who deserves them.
Since my kids go insanely crazy for meatballs, this sheet pan recipe, inspired from one of our favorite meatballs recipes of all time, is a family favorite. The prep is simple, the cleanup is pretty darn fast, and I love that basically everything I need to serve for dinner is in one little place ready to be scooped up with a spatula, piled on a plate, and drizzled with a delectable homemade sweet and sour sauce.
Here’s a quick shoutout to a few other sheet pan dinner favorites:
Quick and Easy Sheet Pan Panini
Sheet Pan Unstuffed Chicken Cordon Bleu and Roasted Broccoli
Teriyaki Chicken and Veggie Sheet Pan Dinner
Sheet Pan Balsamic Chicken and Veggies
Have you made any of these? Sheet pan dinners are the best. The best.
A few tips for sheet pan success
-For this sheet pan meatballs recipe, I use lean or extra lean ground beef or turkey so the baked meatballs aren’t swimming in pools of grease at the end of the baking time. The liquid you see in the above picture is the sauce I brushed on the meatballs immediately out of the oven. It also helps to serve this meal almost right away out of the oven or at the very least remove the meatballs to a plate or serving tray if they won’t be served right away.
-The biggest trick for sheet pan dinners is getting all the varying ingredients to bake in the same amount of time. Cutting the potatoes to 1/4-inch pieces and keeping the meatballs around golf-ball size will help everything to finish cooking at about the same time.
-This recipe, made on a single sheet pan, serves about 4-5. For my family of 7, I double the recipe. This makes my hollow legged teenage boys happy and gives us a serving or so of leftovers. I split the doubled meatballs/veggies onto two sheet pans and use my convection oven setting (same temp) to bake both sheet pans at the same time.
If your soul requires easy recipes for weeknight dinners to attain complete happiness, I think you’ll like this one. Not a lot of fancy, but a whole lot of yumminess.
You could maybe even try lining the sheet pan with parchment paper for a super easy cleanup situation, but I might be a little sad for you if the vegetables don’t get some of that delicious golden brown roasting action on them. So choose wisely. 🙂
*This really could be a complete meal in one without a lot of side dishes, but if you need a few suggestions, here you go!*
Honey Vanilla Yogurt Fruit Salad
Divine Breadsticks or Best-Ever Cornbread
One Year Ago: Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Two Years Ago: French Bread Rolls {Step-by-Step}
Three Years Ago: Pesto and Marinara Mozzarella Chicken Bake
Four Years Ago: Skillet Taco Pasta Shells {30-Minute Meal}
Five Years Ago: Lemon Drop Sugar Cookie Bars
Doubling: I double this recipe for our family of 7 (gives us maybe one serving of leftovers). I split the ingredients up onto two sheet pans and cook both pans at the same time on convection setting in my oven (same temp as in the recipe). For a doubled recipe, I only 1 1/2 the sauce part. Vegetables: you want the vegetables in a single layer, so if your potatoes are gigantic, you may only want to use two instead of the 3-4 medium-sized potatoes called for in the recipe. Just eyeball it so that the potatoes and broccoli don't overcrowd the sheet pan. As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.Sheet Pan Sweet and Sour Meatballs with Roasted Potatoes and Broccoli
Ingredients
Sweet and Sour Sauce:
Meatballs:
Veggies:
Instructions
Notes
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Thanks for the great recipe. You have me converted to sheet pan dinners. I got all the prep dishes done while it cooked. My husband and I both enjoyed this meal.
This dinner is soooooo good!! My 3-year-old exclaimed, “I love everything in this dinner!” And that’s saying something! Thanks, Mel!
I’m loving your sheet pan meals right now. They are bringing me life. This one was great. My kids love sweet and sour sauce, so this was right up their alley. They even ate the broccoli!
I am dairy free, will the recipe still be good if I leave out the milk? Or should it be substituted?
You could try using a dairy free milk…should work fine.
I must have done something wrong. The meatballs were delish but the sauce was way too vinegary! Next time I would use 1/2 the vinegar. I simmered it for at least a half hour
I’ve made this twice in two weeks, and I rarely repeat a recipe that quickly. My husband is not a huge meatball fan and he loved these. My two toddlers ate 4 meatballs a piece! This is one of the few sheet pan meals I’ve tried that actually cooks up evenly and not overly greasy. I switched the broccoli for green beans and had to cut the potatoes pretty small for them to finish in time. Also, for anyone interested in gluten-free meatballs, my husband is celiac and so I made the meatballs with rice crumbs from Trader Joe’s and it worked great. I have also used crumbs from gf bread or gf pretzels (made in a food processor). The rice crumbs have worked the best so far 🙂
Thanks for the review, Ingrid!
Mel, I would love to try this recipe but I am allergic to w-sauce? What do you recommend as a substitute?
You could probably sub in soy sauce or just leave it out.
Delicious! And easy clean-up! I will definitely make this one again. Thank you!
This was great! I used 1 pound of 85% beef. There was grease on the pan but it stayed right under the meatballs and worked out fine. My potatoes looked quite a bit smaller than your picture, and some of them were a wee bit crunchy, but we ate them anyway. I ended up with 12 meatballs. I forgot to brush them with the sauce until there was 3 min left of baking time, but they still turned out well.
Thanks for the review, Monica!
Loved this recipe and that it all cooks together on one pan! Thank you for another delicious meal!
Thanks, Haley!
Love your recipes MEL and your explanations behind the techniques!! 🙂 I have a love/hate relationship with vinegar, especially ACV. Any good substitutes for it in this recipe?
Hmmm…I can’t think of a good sub if you are wanting the contrast between sweet and tangy (for that sweet and sour vibe).
I was out of broccoli, so I substituted brussel sprouts. The meal was a hit!
Probably a silly question, but if I don’t have a convection setting, can I still cook to pans of this at the same time? If so, what do I need to adjust the time and temperature to?
Thanks!
You can try – they might not cook quite as evenly so you’d probably want to switch the baking pans to different racks partway through cooking.
So good, thanks for another winner! I’ve given up on all my other food blogs, and follow you and the girls over at OBB exclusively, and y’all never steer me wrong. I doubled, but just have a conventional oven, so I put it all on a 3/4 sheet pan. If you’ve never gotten your hands on one of those, I highly recommend them. Basically it’s the the full size of a typical home oven. I can do 2 dozen cookies at once, or a big sheet pan meal without crowding. I even tripled a bar cookie recipe and baked the whole thing together when I was putting together Christmas cookie plates… which may have been excessive, but it was delicious!
I’ve seen those pans around; my friend has them and uses them constantly. I need to get one (or two!)…they sound amazing!
Delicious! Due to the time schedule and wanting this for dinner I made the meatballs and bake them in the oven before hand and then at dinner time mixed up the sauce and reheated the meatballs in the sauce in a skillet on the stove. Thanks Mel!
Brilliant, Lachelle!
I wasn’t planning to make this. I was supposed to have meatloaf but didn’t have to enough time and my boys were hungry. I am so glad that I did. It was quick and delish. They wanted more meatballs. I made cauli-rice instead of potatoes and it was still good with the sauce. This will be made over and over-as most of your recipes are. Thank you!!!
Thanks, Sheila!
Do you mean for the potatoes to be cut in quarters? 1/4 inch pieces are really small
No, if the potatoes are cut into quarters they’ll take much longer to cook than the other ingredients. Dicing them small means they’ll cook in the same amount of time as the broccoli/meatballs. You can cut them larger and put the potatoes in the oven first and cook for a while and then pull the sheet pan out and add the broccoli and meatballs.
I needed a recipe with the ingredients I had in my fridge. Mel to the rescue again! Your website is such a blessing in my life!
Thank you, Viktoria!
This is a five star recipe! My husband asked what was for dinner and when I told him he said, “Is that one of what’s her name’s recipes?” YEP! Sure is.
I made a few adjustments by using few things I already had: premade, frozen meatballs, chopped red and yellow peppers and zucchini. Kinda cleaned out the veggie drawer in the refrigerator and didn’t need to go to the store for any ingredient.
Next time I will cook the potatoes for about 15 minutes before I add other veggies.
Haha, your husbands question made me laugh! And thanks for your review! So helpful for others wanting to make changes.
Do you think I could use the Costco meatballs and just make the sauce and everything else?
I’m not sure as I haven’t tried that…I’m a little worried the meatballs will overcook but maybe if you heat them separately that might help?
Does it matter if the broccoli is frozen when it goes in the oven?
I haven’t made this with frozen broccoli but I’ve roasted frozen broccoli before with good results. It *should* work pretty well
Also the recipe says to peel the potatoes, but all the pictures look like the peels are intact. Is it just preference?
Yes! I should have specified that in the recipe. I usually keep the peels on red or yellow potatoes since the skins are thin but it’s really a matter of preference.
Made these last night for dinner. Very well received. Your recipes usually are. The sauce is delectable. 😀 I’m adding this to our rotation. Great option for that extra pound of beef, without having to be tomato based.
I definitely think your recipes have made me a better cook. Not only are they reliable and consistent (barring any user tweaks), I’ve learned what builds a flavor profile, basic stove top and oven roasting techniques, the list goes on. Something that is so taken for granted these days. I actually enjoy cooking and experimenting.
Thank you so much, Andrea! I’m so happy you liked this sheet pan recipe, but mostly, thanks for your kind words. It really means a lot to me because I try so hard to only post the best of the best (the tried and true ones) and I know I can be wordy sometimes in my explanations, but it’s because I want everyone to feel what you do – that there’s a reason behind the technique and recipe. Anyway, thank you!
Tonight’s dinner! I just happened to have everything. It was really good! My daughter especially loves it, and she can be picky. Thanks for another great recipe!!
Thanks so much for checking in to let me know!
Is the recipe calling for apple cider or apple cider vinegar?
Apple cider vinegar.
Have you tried the non-stick foil? Life changing!!!
I think if you line the sheet pan with foil you should still get that crispy action and easy clean up… Looks great!
I was going to say the same thing. I always line my sheet pan with foil when making this type of dinner, and it works great. Potatoes, etc. still get crisp on the side that faces the foil. I spray the foil lightly with PAM first, so the food doesn’t stick. Such easy cleanup!
Thanks, Ellen!
We love your sweet & sour meatballs AND your chicken cordon bleu & broccoli sheet pan dinner. 🙂 Some of our favorites!
I’m so happy you love both of those recipes, Kathleen!
Yum! Your sweet and sour meatballs are one of our favorites!!
I think they are one of Brian’s favorite meals of all time (next to the sweet and sour chicken!)
Do you have any idea what the calorie breakdown would be for this recipie? I am trying to track macros and change up meal plans.
I’m sorry, I don’t track that information but you could plug the recipe into an online nutritional calculator to get the calories (it will vary depending on if you use ground beef vs ground turkey).
Hey Jana, I take that back. I just plugged this recipe into the Prepear app (where I store all my recipes) and for 5 servings, it’s about 395 calories for ground beef (93%).
In case any of your gluten free readers are curious, I have have great luck in the past replacing breadcrumbs in meatballs with gluten-free oats I have given a spin in my vita-mix. Looks like a fantastic meal, can’t wait to try.
Thanks so much for that feedback, Kate!