Sauerkraut Ham Balls

January 2026. The new year cold and clean and here. The morning cough. The inhaler. The scarf. The walk — still two miles, every morning, five years of two miles, the body complaining and the mind overruling and the feet doing what feet do, which is move forward. Forward is the only direction. Forward is the Hensley direction. Forward is what Earl did when he went into the mines every morning and what Betty did when she fed six children on a miner's salary and what I did when I left Harlan County and what Clay did when he walked out of the VA program and into the world.

Made soup beans Monday. The same beans. The same ham hock. The same slow heat. The same cornbread in the same cast iron on the same stove in the same kitchen where I've been cooking for twenty years and where I will cook until the kitchen tells me to stop or until the lungs tell me to stop or until the body tells me to stop, and none of them have told me to stop yet, so I'm cooking. I'm cooking because my mother taught me and my mother was taught by her mother and the chain goes back to a kitchen in a hollow in Harlan County where a woman made beans from nothing and fed a family from the nothing and the nothing became something and the something became us.

I am fifty-eight years old. I have chronic bronchitis from twenty years in the coal mines. I have a back that argues with me every morning. I have a wife who loves me in meatloaf and potato salad and the firm declaration that we're going to be fine. I have three children who survived what they survived — the mines' shadow, the war's shadow, the world's expectation that Hensleys stay down when they're knocked down. I have two grandchildren who carry names that honor the dead and faces that promise the living. I have a mother in Evarts who is eighty-five and sitting on a porch in a dead man's sweater making soup beans on Monday because Monday is Monday and the beans don't change.

I am cooking. I am writing it down. I am putting Betty's recipes on paper so they don't die when the last person who remembers them dies. I am feeding my family. I am breathing — imperfectly, with assistance, with the understanding that every breath is borrowed and every borrowed breath should be used for something that matters, and cooking matters, and feeding matters, and writing it down matters, and being here matters. Being here is the whole thing. Being here is the recipe. The recipe is: show up. Cook something. Feed someone. Repeat.

The ham hock goes in the beans on Monday — it always has, it always will — but sometimes there’s ham left over, and leftover ham in a Hensley kitchen doesn’t go to waste, because nothing went to waste in Betty’s kitchen and nothing goes to waste in mine. These sauerkraut ham balls are what happens when the same instinct that built the beans — use what you have, feed who’s there, make the nothing into something — gets turned into something you can pass around a table. They’re not fancy. They’re exactly right.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups cooked ham, finely ground or minced
1 cup well-drained sauerkraut, chopped
3 oz cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
Vegetable oil for frying (about 2 cups)

Instructions

Mix the filling. In a large bowl, combine the ground ham, drained sauerkraut, softened cream cheese, parsley, Dijon mustard, and black pepper. Mix well until fully incorporated. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes to firm up.
Shape the balls. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of the ham mixture and roll into a ball between your palms. Repeat until all the mixture is used — you should have roughly 18–20 balls.
Set up your dredge. Place the flour, beaten eggs, and breadcrumbs each in their own shallow bowl. Working one at a time, roll each ball in flour, then dip in egg, then coat in breadcrumbs. Press gently so the crumbs adhere.
Heat the oil. In a heavy skillet or cast iron pan, heat about an inch of vegetable oil over medium-high heat to 350°F. A breadcrumb dropped in should sizzle immediately.
Fry in batches. Add the ham balls in small batches — don’t crowd the pan. Fry for 3–4 minutes, turning occasionally, until deep golden brown on all sides. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper-towel-lined plate.
Serve warm. Serve immediately with a side of brown mustard or a simple dipping sauce. These hold well in a low oven (250°F) for up to 20 minutes if you need to keep them warm for the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sauerkraut Ham Balls — The Same Ham, A Different Monday