What Is Beyond Meatballs?
Beyond Meatballs is Beyond Meat's Italian-style plant-based meatball, sold frozen in 10-ounce bags of 12 meatballs. It's built on the same pea-protein foundation as the Beyond Burger and Beyond Sausage, reshaped and reseasoned to work in the places ground beef meatballs usually show up: over spaghetti, tucked into a sub roll, skewered as an appetizer, or simmered in sauce for a weeknight dinner. Beyond Meat launched the product to round out its lineup beyond burger patties and links, betting that meatballs — a format home cooks already buy pre-made in bulk — were an easier entry point for plant-based meat than asking someone to cook from scratch.
The product is positioned as a straight swap for traditional frozen meatballs, not a specialty item, and it's stocked accordingly: in the frozen aisle next to conventional meatballs and other plant-based proteins at major grocery chains, rather than in a separate "vegan" section.
Meatballs are a slightly different engineering problem than a burger patty or a sausage link. A patty only needs to hold together flat on a grill or griddle; a meatball has to keep a round shape through a very different set of stresses — being dropped into simmering sauce, jostled around a pot for twenty minutes, speared with a fork, cut in half on a plate — without turning mushy or falling apart into crumbles. That's the main technical challenge Beyond Meat had to solve differently here compared to its other products, and it shapes a lot of what shows up in the ingredient list and the eating experience below.
Ingredients
Per the product listing, Beyond Meatballs Italian Style contains:
Water, Pea Protein, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Natural Flavors, Rice Protein, Yeast, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Spices, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Apple Extract, Garlic Powder, Vinegar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Onion Powder, Pomegranate Extract, Sunflower Lecithin, Beet Powder (for color), Carrot.
That's the familiar Beyond Meat blueprint: pea and rice protein for structure, canola and coconut oil for fat and browning, methylcellulose to hold the ball shape through simmering in sauce, and a run of extracts — apple, pomegranate, beet, lemon — used for color and background flavor instead of synthetic additives. Garlic powder and onion powder do more seasoning work here than in Beyond's burger or sausage formulas, which tracks with an Italian meatball's flavor profile. The label calls out potassium chloride as a partial salt substitute, a detail that shows up in a few newer Beyond Meat SKUs as the company has worked to trim sodium slightly across its lineup.
The packaging lists the product as gluten-free, non-GMO, and kosher certified. There's a specific allergy note worth flagging on top of the ingredient list itself: because pea protein is legume-derived, Beyond Meat's own labeling cautions that people with severe peanut or other legume allergies should be cautious introducing pea protein, since cross-reactivity is possible even though peas and peanuts are different plants.
Is Beyond Meatballs Vegan?
Yes. Beyond Meatballs is vegan. Every ingredient on the label is plant-, mineral-, or yeast-derived — there's no egg, dairy, or any animal-based binder, which matters because plenty of conventional and even some "healthier" frozen meatballs use egg or parmesan (an animal-rennet cheese, typically) as part of the mix. Beyond Meat's full retail catalog is built around a 100% plant-based positioning, and this product follows that pattern with no exceptions in the ingredient list. As always, run any specific flavor variant or regional SKU through the spvegan.com ingredient checker before you buy if you want a second check — recipes on packaged foods do shift between production runs.
Nutrition Facts
Here's how Beyond Meatballs compares to a widely available plant-based competitor, Gardein Classic Meatless Meatballs. Serving sizes differ, so use this as a directional comparison rather than an exact one.
| Product | Serving | Calories | Protein | Total Fat | Sat. Fat | Sodium | Carbs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Meatballs (Italian Style) | 5 meatballs (121g) | 290 | 19g | 21g | 7g | 500mg | 9g |
| Gardein Classic Meatless Meatballs | 3 meatballs | 160 | 15g | 7g | 0.5g | 370mg | 9g |
Normalized per meatball, Beyond's version runs noticeably richer: roughly 58 calories and 4.2 grams of fat per meatball versus Gardein's roughly 53 calories and 2.3 grams of fat. The saturated fat gap is the more dramatic number — Beyond's meatballs carry a lot more of it per serving, again largely from the coconut oil used to help the product brown and hold moisture the way ground-beef meatballs do. Protein per meatball is fairly close between the two (about 3.8g for Beyond vs. roughly 5g for Gardein), so this isn't a case of one product being clearly higher-protein; it's more that Beyond leans into a richer, fattier profile that mimics traditional beef-and-pork meatballs, while Gardein's soy-and-wheat-gluten base lands leaner and closer to a lean-ground-turkey meatball in macros.
Taste and Texture
Simmered in marinara or baked, Beyond Meatballs hold their round shape well and don't fall apart the way looser veggie-based meatballs sometimes do after twenty minutes in sauce — the methylcellulose binding does real work here. The exterior browns and the interior stays notably moist, which is the fat content paying off; dry, crumbly texture is the most common complaint about lower-fat plant-based meatballs, and this isn't that. The seasoning is a fairly standard Italian blend — garlic, onion, black pepper, herbs — pitched to work with tomato sauce rather than to stand out on its own, so it reads as "meatball" in the context of a pasta dish more than it does eaten plain off a fork.
Texture-wise, the bite is denser and slightly springier than a traditional hand-formed beef meatball, closer to what you'd get from a commercial frozen meatball than a homemade one — which, given the frozen-aisle competitive set, is arguably the right target to hit rather than a shortfall. Gardein's meatballs, by comparison, have a slightly looser, more crumbly bite typical of a wheat-gluten-and-soy base, which some people find closer to a classic meatball crumble and others find less cohesive when skewered or eaten out of hand.
Beyond Meatballs vs. the Alternatives
| Product | Vegan? | Protein base | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Meatballs | Yes | Pea and rice protein | Sauced pasta dishes, subs, anyone prioritizing moisture and hold-together over leanness |
| Gardein Classic Meatless Meatballs | Yes | Soy protein and wheat gluten (seitan-style) | Lower-fat meals, budget-conscious shoppers, those without a soy or gluten allergy |
The practical dividing line between the two is allergens as much as taste: Gardein's soy-and-wheat-gluten base is a non-starter for anyone avoiding soy or gluten, while Beyond Meatballs is free of both but isn't peanut-allergy-neutral given the pea protein caution on its own label. Neither is the automatic right answer — it depends on which allergens and macros matter more to your household.
Price and Where to Buy
Beyond Meatballs typically runs around $5.99 to $6.50 for a 10-ounce bag of 12 meatballs, putting it at roughly $0.60 per ounce — a step above Gardein's meatless meatballs, which price closer to $0.39 per ounce at the same retailers. That premium is consistent with where Beyond Meat generally sits in the plant-based meat category: pricier than legacy vegetarian brands, positioned closer to premium fresh meat on a per-pound basis. It's stocked in the frozen aisle at Kroger-family stores, Walmart, Target, Whole Foods Market, and most major regional grocers that carry the rest of the Beyond Meat lineup, usually shelved alongside conventional frozen meatballs rather than segregated into a specialty freezer case. Availability is broad and consistent rather than limited or seasonal, which isn't true of every item in Beyond Meat's catalog — some limited-release products come and go by region.
How to Cook Beyond Meatballs
The package instructions call for cooking from frozen. On the stovetop, simmering the meatballs directly in sauce for about 15–20 minutes works well and lets them pick up flavor while they finish cooking. In the oven, roughly 400°F for 15–18 minutes on a lined sheet pan browns the exterior more than simmering alone. They can also go straight into an air fryer at around 380°F for 10–12 minutes, shaken halfway, if you want a firmer, more browned crust before adding sauce. Because the product already contains a meaningful amount of fat, it doesn't need added oil in any of these methods.
Who Should Buy This
Beyond Meatballs makes sense if you want a frozen meatball that holds its shape in sauce, stays moist rather than drying out, and is close in richness to a traditional beef-and-pork blend — useful for spaghetti and meatballs, meatball subs, or an appetizer platter where texture matters as much as flavor. It's a weaker fit if you're specifically trying to keep saturated fat down while eating plant-based, in which case a soy-based option like Gardein's is the leaner choice, or if soy and wheat gluten aren't a concern and price per meatball matters more, since Gardein currently runs cheaper per ounce.
Final Verdict
Beyond Meatballs delivers on the specific thing frozen meatballs need to do — hold together, stay moist, and read as "meatball" once they're coated in sauce — and it does that better than several lighter plant-based competitors, at the cost of being the richer, higher-fat option on the shelf. It's confirmed vegan, gluten-free, and straightforward to cook from frozen across stovetop, oven, or air fryer. For anyone replacing a spaghetti-and-meatballs night or a sub-shop order, it's a solid, if not the leanest, choice.
Rating: 7.9/10
