The Summer Olympics only come around once every 4 years, so this year, we decided to challenge ourselves to create something of Olympic proportions. We present to you the 2012 International Colossal Meatball Challenge! We built 7, that’s right, SEVEN Char-Broil Big Easy Smoker, Roaster, Grills to cook these monstrosities. The complete coverage of TRU-Infrared heat over the entire surface of the meatball seemed to be the only way to cook something of this magnitude.
Each meatball weighed in around 20 pounds. We chose to represent 7 different countries by stuffing each of the meatballs with different food from around the world.
Meatball Base Ingredients:
Each Olympic-sized meatball contained:
- 8 1/2 pounds of ground meat (beef, sausage or both)
- 6 eggs
- 2 cups of bread crumbs
- 1 cup of parmesan cheese
- 3 meatballs were wrapped in 6 pounds of bacon weaved together
Meatball Stuffing
Click on each country to find out what we used to stuff their representative meatball.
An all sausage meatball wrapped in a bacon weave and stuffed with cocktail sausages, cubed ham, and cheddar cheese.
A Sausage and beef meatball stuffed with Hibachi Steak, Chicken, and Shrimp, Fried Rice with a little seafood sauce.
An all beef meatball stuffed with Steak, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, refried beans, mexican blend cheese and served with guacamole and sour cream.
An all beef meatball stuffed with Mongolian beef and fried rice.
A beef and pork meatball infused with minced garlic and stuffed with spaghetti, meat sauce, mozzarella cheese, and more Italian meatballs.
A beef and pork meatball wrapped in a bacon weave and stuffed with artichoke hearts, spinach, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and topped with Greek dressing.
A beef and pork meatball, wrapped in a bacon weave and stuffed with normal sized meatballs, grape jelly, and BBQ Sauce (yeah, yeah, this isn’t REALLY Swedish meatballs, but we decided to put our own southern twist on the dish).
The Results
The Greek meatball was the by far the biggest hit and turned out to be surprisingly tasty. If we had to place each meatball in order of how tasty they were, we would rate them as follows: GREECE, SWEDEN, ITALY, AMERICA, MEXICO, JAPAN, CHINA
If these were rated simply on how they looked once cut open, we would rate them this way: GREECE, ITALY, SWEDEN, JAPAN, CHINA, AMERICA, MEXICO
The GOLD MEDAL definitely goes to the Greek Meatball. It came out perfectly and the Greek dressing marinated the meatball from the inside out! The cavity stayed in tact the whole time as well. We attribute this to the spinach leaves that lined the inside.
Photo Gallery
Our Challenge To You
What would YOU put in a meatball the size of your head? We have some ideas, but we want to hear from you! Comment below and tell us what tasty treats you would encase in a meatball and what country it represents.
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That so fat(en)ing why would you give your fans such an unhealthy meal? I do not want or like your support of the athletes. You want be an athlete if you eat this demonstration of good food!! Truly your not about getting America back in shape!!!!!!!
Kenneth – thanks for sharing your thoughts and being a supporter of the athletes!
Says the crew chief who supervised making of these giant meatballs:
“If we each ate one it would be crazy! The portion sizes were really normal and because we used standard recipes it was no more or less fattening than a normal size meatloaf cooked for one. We had several dozen people over for the buffet and folks took food home too!”
Hope that makes you feel a bit better… Welcome to the Cookout! ~ Barry ‘CB’ Martin
What a disgusting idea to promote excessive eating! No wonder most Americans are getting obese. Shame on Charbroil to promote this insanity.
Judy – if we made it in a big ol’tray and cooked it in an oven, inviting over the entire neighborhood to a party – would that be OK?
Kenneth, It’s for fun and taken to the extreme! Don’t be such a stick in the mud. As you saw, many people partcipated and had a bit of fun. Did you see the diffrence from the women and the men’s reactions? Too funny!
Kenneth probably has the diabetes.
This is GREAT !!!!!!! Won’t be able to try it though. Some low-life scum decided he needed my grill more than I did.
But it’s a great thing.
The Greek one sounds really good. Can you please provide more detailed ingredient quantities? I have a Char Broil Tru Red grill. Thanks.
Dave – Each of these meatballs was more of an experiment than an actual science. Pretty much anything (with the exception of velveta or some other type of melty cheese) works well. The greek meatball used feta which worked out really well because it didn’t pour out the seam of the meatball. We ran a test before we cooked these seven and used WAY too much Velveta cheese and ended up with a MESS! Regular shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese seem to work well too.
Make sure not to stuff the meatball too full. The ingredients inside need a little room to expand or it will break the meatball and all of your ingredients will end up inside your cooking chamber instead of on your plate.
If you want to know the ingredients of each meatball, click on the tabbed section above the photo gallery with each country listed. If you fill up the bottom half of the meatball with a little mound of ingredients, you should be okay. As to exact amounts, it pretty much depends on how much of each you want inside. Anticipation of “Is this going to actually work?!” is half the fun of this “recipe”.
Hope this helps!
-Michael
WOW…these mega meatballs look great!!! I would have loved to be part of the preparation and cooking of these…then of course the best part of sampling them. I have one of the char broil cookers and while enjoy cooking in them I’m still learning.
Thanks for sharing!
That was the wildest idea that looks like it was lots of fun.
I’m sure everyone enjoyed sampling each countries entry. Nobody should have gone home hungry. LOL
Those are some fatties.
Keep up the good ideas, fun with food that’s what it’s all about.
P.S. only thing missing was bacon wrapped…..Ha
You have created a monstrosity! Albeit a delicious one that I would totally eat. Especially that SWEDEN one. Meat wrapped in meat with a delicious meat center!
How well would the recipe halve?
I think it looks great!! The fack that it is made in America means you can chose to eat it or not. I chose to eat it and certainly dont want to be told i cant by anyone. Somehow without someone telling me what I can or can not eat no one in my family is overweight.
To all the naysayer’s of this great demonstration of Char Broil’s quality, and for pushing the limits and thinking outside of the box…go eat some celery sticks.
Where do i get the net you were using to keep the meatball together?
TOMCAT – We got the netting from http://www.zip-net.com. The folks over there were extremely helpful and have the right netting for pretty much anything food related. I will caution you though that you shouldn’t hang the net on a rod or anything that will get hot while it is cooking. It will melt the netting. Also, make sure to trim the excess if you are going to tie up a meatball like this. If not, you will end up with a big melted ball of netting.
If you call them and let them know what you are using the netting for, they should be able to make sure you order the right netting.
if i have a standard big easy basket will that be too close to the bottom? i noticed your baskets had an attachment that kept the meatball 3-4 inches from the bottom.
Yep. We used The Big Easy Half Racks to elevate the meatball off the bottom. You can find these here: http://www.charbroil.com/grilling-smoking-accessories/the-big-easy-accessories.html?SID=155ubv2blugnikcerp2mi9s3f7
I recommend either the half racks, or the leg racks to accomplish this. You could use the Easy-out Cooking Rack as well. Make sure if you are going to purchase one or multiple accessories, that you purchase the correct size accessory. If you have the standard big easy, make sure the accessory title says “for The Big Easy” and not “for Smoker Roaster Grill”. Here are links to each of the accessories that will fit your standard Big Easy:
http://www.charbroil.com/easy-out-cooking-rack-for-the-big-easy.html
http://www.charbroil.com/leg-racks-for-the-big-easy.html
I think the Olympic sized meatballs are a fantastic party idea. I think the greatest thing about grilling is having fun while doing it. It’s an American pastime. You grill, you have friends and family over, you laugh, you have a good time. For you folks saying this isn’t trying to get America back in shape or that this isn’t in the true spirit of the Olympics, please remember that in America, you have the CHOICE to eat what you want. So if you don’t like the big meatballs, don’t eat them, and let the people that loved grilling and building these delicious meat beasts enjoy their day. Once again, in America, you can just choose not to eat it. Also, it’s not anyone’s job but their own to get themselves back in shape.
Now, where’s my deep fried bacon wrapped bacon dipped in barbecue sauce?
CHARBROIL AS A LEADER IN MFG. OF GRILLS ETC. DID A FINE JOB OF HAVING FUN WHILE CREATING A RECIPE AND COOKING A SPLENDED ITEM. IT’S TOO BAD SO MANY PINHEADS CANT FIND SOMETHING POSITIVE TO DO, AND INSTEAD SNIPE, BAD-MOUTH, AND ATTEMPT TO SMEAR ANYTHING, AND EVERYTHING OTHERS DO. SHAME ON THEM, THEY MAKE MOST PEOPLE SICK, WITH THEIR NEGATIVITY.