The present study investigated the effects of ultrasonic waves assisted vacuum tumbling on eating quality of beef meatballs. Taking the traditional treatment group (CON) as the blank control, the beef surimi was treated by vacuum tumbling (VT), ultrasonic waves (UW) and ultrasonic waves assisted vacuum tumbling (VT+UW) respectively, and then uniformly made into beef meatballs. The cooking loss, texture characteristics, microstructure and volatile flavor of meatballs treated with different processing methods were measured. Results showed that the cooking loss of beef meatballs was significantly decreased (P