---
title: "Recipe: Easy Tray Bake"
date: 2026-05-14
tags: [recipes, food, tray-bake, nederlands]
summary: A no-stress oven tray bake with AH meatballs, krieltjes, winter carrots and red onions. First food recipe on the blog. Comes with a slider to scale ingredients up for more people. Dutch translation available via the toggle at the top.
aliases: [easy-tray-bake, tray-bake]
---

First food recipe on the blog. Wooooh! Time to see if Eleventy can handle a kitchen.

This is one of those toss-everything-on-the-tray recipes. About ten minutes of "work" and thirty minutes of oven. Most of the active time is fighting with baking paper on your tray.

<div class="recipe-scale" data-recipe-scale data-base-servings="2">
  <div class="recipe-scale-label">
    <span>Servings:</span>
    <button type="button" class="recipe-scale-btn" data-scale-minus aria-label="Decrease servings">-</button>
    <input type="number" data-scale-input min="1" max="50" value="2" inputmode="numeric" aria-label="Servings">
    <button type="button" class="recipe-scale-btn" data-scale-plus aria-label="Increase servings">+</button>
  </div>
  <p class="recipe-scale-note">The base recipe serves <strong>2</strong>. Scaled amounts are an estimate, adjust to taste. Whole items (onions, meatballs) round up.</p>
</div>

## Ingredients

<ul class="recipe-ingredients">
<li><span class="qty" data-qty="1">1</span>x pack of AH Biologisch Rundergehakt balletjes (<a href="https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi436877">ah.nl</a>) - that's <span class="qty" data-qty="12">12</span> small beef meatballs</li>
<li><span class="qty" data-qty="500" data-unit="gram">500 gram</span> AH Krieltjes mix (<a href="https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi482839">ah.nl</a>) - small waxy potatoes, mixed colours</li>
<li><span class="qty" data-qty="375" data-unit="gram">375 gram</span> AH Biologisch Winterpeen (<a href="https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi561136">ah.nl</a>) - winter carrots, about half a 750 gram pack</li>
<li><span class="qty" data-qty="2" data-round="up">2</span> large red onions, or <span class="qty" data-qty="3" data-round="up">3</span> small ones</li>
<li>A bit of salt or Herbamare</li>
<li>A bit of olive oil (engine oil is not recommended)</li>
</ul>

## Time

Prep depends on how good your knife skills are. Mine are mediocre, so I spend roughly 15 to 20 minutes getting everything ready. It tends to help if your partner, your mother, or your neighbour gets a head start on the potatoes. Something something efficiency. Then 30 minutes in the oven.

Pro tip: switch the oven on to preheat **right at the start** of your prep, so it's at temperature by the time the tray is ready. Use **conventional top + bottom heat**, not the fan / hot-air setting.

## Tools

- Knife
- Cutting board
- Peeler ("dunschiller" in Dutch; "rasp" is the Dutch word for grater, and the linked [video](https://youtu.be/D_iqN7FGtIg) is a small Dutch meme of someone hilariously struggling to pronounce it)
- Oven
- Baking tray
- Baking paper
- Electricity
- Oven gloves, or a tea towel folded double

We have a 90 cm oven and tray. A smaller one is fine too, you'll just probably need to split it across 2 trays or 2 rounds.

## Instructions

Grab the baking tray and chuck the baking paper on top. Once you have won the fight with the baking paper and it actually stays put (seriously, always a hassle, my tip is to wet it a bit), start by de-sprouting and lightly cleaning the potatoes. We're fans of potatoes with the skin on, because hey, why bother buying the pre-mixed bag otherwise ;-). But you do you! Cut them into bite-sized chunks and lay them on the baking tray on top of the baking paper (under it would be a bit strange).

Peel the carrots with the peeler first (long strokes, away from your fingers, you know the drill). Then cut them into bite-sized chunks and put those on your baking tray too (yes, on top of the baking paper that is on top of the tray, you've got the idea by now right? ;').

Slice onion rings. Yes I know, boring work, but you can do this. I can do this, trust me, you can do this too. Drop them on the tray.

Open the pack of meatballs. Try not to send the balls flying across the kitchen because you opened it a bit too enthusiastically (speaking from experience). Place them on the tray.

Grab your olive oil (so NOT engine oil) and sprinkle a bit over everything on the tray. Or, if you want a less greasy result, grab a small bowl and a fancy silicone basting brush and brush everything with oil (hopefully you know how that works? Right?!?!? But if not: fill the bowl with some oil, dip the brush in the oil, brush the brush over the ingredients, and repeat until everything has a light coat).

Now flick a bit of salt or Herbamare over them (the ingredients, you know, the ones on the baking paper on the baking tray).

Put it (gently) in your *preheated* oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 30 minutes. Don't forget to set a timer.

After 30 minutes, when your oven goes BEEP BEEP, or whatever your timer does, put on your oven gloves, or one of those fancy thermal suits you see people wearing near volcanoes, or just grab a tea towel and fold it double, or burn your hands (not recommended). Take the food out of the oven (yes yes, the whole shebang, tray and all, just dump the lot onto your worktop) and spoon it onto a plate.

Or spoon it onto multiple plates, or eat it straight off the scorching hot tray. Whatever floats your boat. I'd grab a plate.

Voila! Bon appétit!