Frugal Meal-Planning with Simek’s Meatballs – Recipes & Giveaway

With the temperatures dropping and days becoming shorter (I can’t believe it’s already dark out by dinnertime!), nothing beats a comforting, home-cooked meal that’s easy on the budget. I’ve been cooking more hot-dishes, casseroles and other “Minnesota” foods that are easy to put together and inexpensive. This is why I was happy when Simek’s contacted me to try some of their new Meatballs, Lasagna and recipes. Plus they’ve provided a prize pack for me to give away to one lucky Twin Cities Frugal Mom reader!

Simek’s is a local-woman owned company and their meatballs come in three different sizes and have flavor options of beef, turkey, sausage and Italian-style beef. With the meatballs already made and ready-to-go, it’s easy to put more time and creativity into the rest of the recipe! Simek’s has a lot of ideas for getting kids in the kitchen, such as “Meatball Mummies.” These ideas can be found on their Pinterest page.

Simek’s Meatballs Review

Simek’s provided me with some coupons for free meatballs as well as some lasagna to try so I headed to Cub Foods where they had all the different sizes and flavors. They also had lasagna in Beef, Italian Sausage and Vegetable varieties.

I picked up the Italian Style, Mini Beef, Mini Sausage and Mini Turkey meatball varieties, plus I picked out some Italian Sausage Lasagna.

The next day I tried making Mini Meatball Bites, one of their many yummy-looking recipes from their website. They were SO easy and good! Made from just four ingredients, it took minutes to prepare them and only 10 minutes to bake. My 4-year-old loved them and asked for them again the next day!

Simek’s meatballs have a unique blend of spices that make them so flavorful on their own, so they are very versatile and don’t need much added to them to make a great meal.

There are sooo many simple recipes to try with Simek’s Meatballs – everything from Italian Meatball Dunkers to Mini Sausage Egg Bake – and it’s easy to create your own.

I also tried the Mini Sausage Meatballs in a Quiche recipe. It turned out great! I just replaced the sausage crumbles with mini sausage meatballs, right out of the freezer. You could also thaw out the meatballs enough to crumble them, too.

Fun Meatball Facts

• Italian cooking is up 14% since 2007
• Meatball offerings on menus are increasing , up 10% since 2010
• U.S. consumption of meatballs is up 35% since 2002

GIVEAWAY

One lucky Twin Cities Frugal Mom reader will win a Simek’s prize pack with 4 coupons for FREE Simek’s products: 2 Mini Meatball coupons, 1 Classic Meatballs coupon and 1 package of Simek’s lasagna, plus a brochure with recipes and a Simek’s chip clip. Enter by filling out the Rafflecopter form below by Monday, November 17th at 11:00pm CST. Winner will be randomly selected and contacted by email on Tuesday, November 18th. Winner will have 48 hours to reply and claim prize and will have to provide a mailing address. Good luck!

(Disclosure: I was sent coupons to try Simek’s products for this review. All opinions are 100% mine.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway