Schwan's Italian Style Meatballs: Product Review

With the busy lives we lead, we're always looking for delicious, table-ready, or nearly-table-ready foods. Personally, I don't even like making the trip to the grocery store; the aisles are crowded with undecided shoppers, and there are always lines at the checkout.

Schwan's is a company that delivers frozen foods to your door. The products are high quality in most cases and a little pricier than the supermarket, but I find it worth it to be able to shop on line or by catalog, and have my order delivered to my home for a $1.00 delivery fee. The Schwan's man will stop by every two weeks with his freezer truck full of goodies. If you haven't placed an order ahead of time by phone at 1-888-SCHWANS or on line at schwans.com, you can order items on the spot, but the possibility exists that the driver may be sold out of an item you want that day.

Schwan's Italian Style Meatballs come frozen in a zip lock type 28 ounce bag, for $8.99 or $1.00 per serving. There are approximately 54 one to one and one quarter inch diameter meatballs or 9 servings of six per bag. The fact that once opened, the bag can be re-sealed tightly adds convenience to an already handy entrée. The meat balls are frozen individually, which makes it easy to pour out one or two servings if you choose, and return the remaining meatballs to the freezer for use another day.

The meatballs can be prepared directly from the freezer by baking them in a single layer in a baking pan, loosely covered with aluminum foil for 25 to 30 minutes at 425 degrees, or baked 6 at a time on a microwave safe plate, covered with a paper towel, on high for 50 seconds to a minute. (Larger quantities can be prepared in the microwave with increased cooking time. Another option the package does not mention, is they can be baked in a slow cooker in marinara or sweet and sour sauce in a couple of hours.

These meatballs contain beef, vegetable protein, onions, bread crumbs, garlic powder, garlic, parsley, Romano cheese, water, salt, soybean oil, and pepper.

Once you try them, you'll find many ways to use them: as appetizers with your favorite dipping sauce, , in sweet and sour sauce with pineapple chunks on rice, in marinara sauce on pasta or in sub rolls with mozzarella cheese on top. I like to cook them in marinara sauce on the stove top, and then put them in sub rolls, top with mozzarella and parmesan cheese and bake the rolls in the oven, just long enough to melt the cheese and make the rolls crusty.

Nutritional Content per serving:

Calories 250 Total Fat 21 g Sodium 450 mg Potassium 310 mg
Total Carbohydrates 3 g Dietary Fiber 1 g Protein 13 g
Vitamin A 2% RDA Vitamin C 2% RDA
Calcium 4 % RDA Iron 10% RDA