Grilled Italian Beef Skewers with fresh bell peppers, red onion, and homemade meatballs. The meatballs are brushed with a simple tomato glaze that takes about two minutes to mix-up! This is the best kind of summer comfort food.

Italian Beef Skewers

If there’s one thing I mourn during the summer it’s the loss of meatballs. When it’s 90+ degrees outside the thought of turning on the stove or oven to make a batch of meatballs makes me all sweaty just thinking about it, so meatballs have been assigned the to the “winter food” category, which makes me sad. I miss those beefy little bites.

But, good news! Recently, my eyes have been opened to summer meatballs possibility, first when I made slow cooker meatballs from the book Lose Weight by Eating (read my review here!) and, second, when I stumbled across this recipe for Italian Meatball Kabobs from Homemade Hooplah. We know now that slow cooker meatballs in the summer are genius – no stove, no oven, no extra heat! – but the grilled meatball concept made me pause for a minute. Wouldn’t skewered meatballs just fall apart on the grill?

Chrisy proved it’s possible, so I wanted to try, too.

The Meatballs

First, this recipe is easy and uses mostly pantry ingredients like dried spices and store-bought breadcrumbs. I rolled out one-ounce meatballs (about two tablespoons) and then threaded them onto wooden skewers along with some red onion and bell peppers. Here’s the deal: you want to make sure your meatballs are well formed so they stay together on the skewer otherwise, as they cook, they will fall apart. I did lose one soldier into the fiery depths of my grill, but the rest stayed intact even after turning the skewers several times.

The Tomato Glaze

Even though you can’t tell in the photos the meatballs are coated in a simple tomato glaze made with balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and Italian seasonings. It’s what makes these Italian Beef Skewers “Italian” and without I’d just call them beef skewers. See what I did there?

These are a great example of “summerizing” what’s normally considered a winter comfort food, so as this hot and humid summer continues I’ll be turning to these again, I’m sure. I hope you give them a try, too!

More Summer Recipes

Shrimp Fajita Bowls

Chicken Kabobs with Pesto Rice

Cilantro-Lime Salmon Burgers with Avocado Mayo