Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray (or brush foil with olive oil). Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Combine sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Keep in fridge while you make the meatballs.

Finely dice bacon. Add bacon, along with a quarter cup of water, to a medium skillet over medium heat. Cook until just about crisp, around 5 to 7 minutes. While the bacon cooks, finely dice half an onion.

When the bacon is just shy of crisp, remove with a slotted spoon into a medium bowl. With skillet still over medium heat, add diced onion and cook in bacon fat until soft, around 5 to 7 minutes. Remove onions with slotted spoon (leaving excess fat in the pan) and add to bowl with bacon. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes.

In a separate large bowl, lightly beat one egg. Add raw ground beef to the bowl, along with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, a few grinds of black pepper, panko bread crumbs, Cheddar and cooled onion-bacon mixture. Gently combine using a wet hand, taking care not to overmix, which can make the meatball tough.

Roll beef mixture into 16 balls, about 1½-inch diameter each. Place onto the prepared baking sheet with space between the meatballs. When oven is heated, cook on the middle rack for 12 to 15 minutes, until the meatballs are nicely brown on top.

There will be a lot of excess oil from the balls, and some of them may still stick to the foil because of the cheese. Gently pry the meatballs off the baking sheet and place on a large plate lined with two sheets of paper towel. Serve with sauce.