My Perfect Spaghetti & Meatballs Recipe

Even an Italian grandmother would be jealous of this homemade marinara sauce. When it comes to comforting weeknight dinners, it doesn’t get much better than this.

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channeling my inner Italian grandma. Okay, I’m ready to make spaghetti meatballs. We’ll start by making our tomato sauce, which begins with two small yellow onions, both of which I’m going to dice. We’re not actually going to use all of this onion for this sauce. Instead, we’ll end up splitting it up and using part of it for the meatballs. But chopping it all at once will save you time in the kitchen. Once we got our nice big pile of onions, we’ll move on to the garlic. Quick smash of the whole head of garlic. Then same thing on six of the cloves. There’s just no substitute in the kitchen for good, fresh minced garlic. Mince up your garlic until it’s nice and fine. If you think about it, as you continue to mince your garlic, more and more flavor gets exposed, and you’ll have a more flavorful tomato sauce. Once our garlic’s done, the last thing we’ll do is take our wedge of Parmesan cheese and trim off that rind. This rind here has a ton of flavor. We’re going to use that in our tomato sauce. In a heavy bottom pan or Dutch oven, we’ll turn the heat to medium and add a splash of olive oil. Just enough to lightly coat the bottom of your pan. Now is when I like to go grab my wooden spoon because something about making a tomato sauce without a wooden spoon just doesn’t feel right. Once your olive oil is nice and hot, maybe starts to shimmer a little, add in that onion. This is when it’s going to start to smell good. Immediately hit that onion with a pinch of salt. Anytime I’m cooking with onion or garlic, I’m always adding a bit of salt right away and begin to stir. We’re going to do this for about 5 minutes to let the onion soften. We’re not looking to brown or char anything just yet. Once your onion starts to look translucent, add in all of your garlic. Still over medium heat, we’re going to stir this for another 1 to two minutes. But as you do this, constantly be scraping the edges of the pan because garlic burns fast. If you ever start to smell or notice burning here, you can always add a little splash of water. And that helps to quickly cool things down and avoid burning. At this point, I’m going to take half of my onion and garlic mixture and reserve it off to the side for our meatballs. You don’t have to measure this part out, just eyeball it. Next, we’ll add in some tomato paste. This is where we’ll really start to get those delicious umami flavors in our tomato sauce. And a small pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. This one’s up to you. It all depends on your spice tolerance. We’ll stir this constantly scraping off the bottom of the pan until it becomes a robust almost brownish red color. This is an extremely important step in the tomato sauce making process. And this is where we develop a huge amount of our flavor. And now it’s time for one of my favorite parts, adding in our whole tomatoes. It’s not normally how I do it, but it still worked. There’s can number two. I’ll usually add a little splash of water into the cans to swirl it around and get all that extra tomato off the sides. That way you really get everything. You can use your wooden spoon to crush these up, but because this is how I learned in restaurants, I like to get in there with my clean hands and just start crushing them. Oh, just like that. There’s a good chance it’ll make a mess of your kitchen. But this is the Italian grandma method. You have to be willing to get a little bit messy. The other thing that I love about crushing these tomatoes up by hand is that everything ends up being a slightly different size. And that’ll give your sauce all these really nice different textures. But if you’d rather skip this step and use pre-crushed tomatoes or even toss these in a blender, that’s fine, too. I will say I even think it makes the sauce taste just a little bit better. If your sauce is looking a little too thick, you can add more water. And to finish it off, I’ll season it once more with a bit of salt, a pinch of fresh cracked pepper, a little sugar, which can help to cut down in the acidity of your tomatoes, the Parmesan rind that we talked about earlier, and a few sprigs of basil laid nicely over the top of your sauce. This will let all that nice flavor seep down as we cook. And that’s it. We’ll cover this and let it cook over a low simmer until we’re done with everything else. Stay there. We’ll move on to our meatballs. First, I’ll chop my fresh basil. If you can’t find fresh basil, it’s okay to use dry, but to me, this just gives such a fresher, better flavor. To chop it up, I’m going to stack them all down on top of each other just like this. Then, I’ll press them down and roll it all up. And then just chop it all up into these nice fine shavings. This is called a chifonod. If you want to add a few extra chops in there, you totally can, but this is exactly what we’re looking for. Next, I’ll grab a large bowl and add in my breadrumbs, my grated Parmesan cheese, my softened onions and garlic. Make sure you get all of it. Then, two whole eggs, and last but not least, a splash of milk. We’ll mix this up and then let it sit for about 5 minutes. What that’ll do is hydrate all of these breadcrumbs to hold a lot of moisture and keep our meatballs nice and juicy. And while we let this hydrate, I’m going to toast off my other breadcrumbs. What we’re going to make now is called pong gratado. It’s basically toasted breadcrumbs. All you do is add some olive oil to the bottom of a pan and then sprinkle in your breadcrumbs. I like to use panko because it’s extra light and crispy. And this is going to happen fast. Stir it around and get it toasted and golden brown. That’s it. Just watch carefully and once it’s golden brown, you’re done. You can also season it with a touch of salt and some fresh cracked pepper. The reason I add this extra step is spaghetti and meatballs has really always lacked a little bit of texture to me. Everything’s nice and chewy, but there’s nothing crunchy or crispy. So, this just adds a really exciting extra layer of texture to your dish. You should be able to see, but also hear when this is nice and toasted and golden brown. So, at this point, I’m going to go ahead and pour it off onto a paper towel lined baking sheet. Spread it out to allow some of that extra olive oil to drain off. This will keep things nice and crispy. And by now, this should have soaked more than enough. You’ll notice that it’ll have gotten a little bit thicker here, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for. That means the milk has soaked into these breadcrumbs. Now, we want to add in our beef as well as our ground pork. Doing a few different blends of meat gives that extra flavor and is pretty classic. Then our chopped basil. Smells so good. Pinch of salt and some fresh cracked pepper. For this next step, you can use your bare hands if you want, but I like to toss on some gloves. By the way, if you’re ever trying to put on rubber gloves in the kitchen and they won’t go on cuz your hands are wet or sticky, just coat your hands in cornstarch real quick and they’ll slide right in. And then just get in there and make sure that everything is fully and evenly mixed. I will note that we don’t want to overm mix. You don’t want them to become gummy and chewy. And that’s what will happen if you mix too much. So mix them just enough that you feel like everything has been barely evenly mixed. And that’s it. The smell of these is unbelievable. That smells so good. You never think of raw meat as something that smells that good, but this is amazing. So, this is it. I didn’t mix that long, but it’s already done. It’s mixed enough. And we do not want to over mix. Now is also a great time to check on my sauce, which smells amazing. To shape the meatballs, get a new pair of gloves. Sometimes I coat my hands with just a tiny bit of oil. That’s the second time that I’ve uh dropped the uh can of tomatoes. Then grab enough meat to make about the size of a golf ball. And very lightly roll them up and place them down on a parchment line baking sheet. See how nothing sticks when you have a little oil? For this step here, you could really make these whatever size you want. Doesn’t really matter. Just make sure you don’t make them too big cuz then it can be really hard to cook them all the way through. And if you ever need to coat your hands with just a little bit more olive oil, go ahead and do exactly that. These are pretty. You shouldn’t worry if they’re not all perfect. But I will say you do want them to generally be the same size so they cook in the same amount of time. Sometimes it is okay for things to cook in an uneven way, but raw meat is not when you want to play around with that. Pay attention to the fact that when I’m doing this, I’m really not pressing them and mushing them and overworking them anymore here either. I am literally rolling them up just enough that they hold together in ball because overworking them here is going to make them gummy and chewy and we do not want that. Last meatball. We got a little bit left over. And there we go. Perfect. Beautiful meatballs glistening and light. It’s time to cook our meatballs. And that all starts with a bit of olive oil into a cast iron pan. I like to put enough that it fully coats the bottom of a pan. Once that oil gets nice and hot, bring your meatballs next to your workstation and add them in away from you just like a steak one by one. I want a beautiful thick even crust on every single meatball. That’s going to give me such a better look and flavor. And when you put in that extra effort to get a nice crust, the result and flavor blows people’s minds. Given that olive oil can burn really fast, keep a close eye on your temperature control and heat. Once you think they have a nice crust, go ahead and start to flip. That is exactly what I’m looking for. Beautiful crust. If you get a crust like this, I’m telling you, these are going to be the best meatballs you’ve ever had. Not too dark, but nice and golden brown and crispy. That’s insane. While these finish getting a crust on the other side, I’ll bring my tomato sauce back in and get ready to add those meatballs into my sauce. I am willing to bet that you have never seen a crust on a meatball like this. Remember, it’s not going to stay that crispy once we add it to the sauce, but it is going to give tons and tons of flavor that you’ve probably never tasted before in a spaghetti and meatballs dish. I think this is my favorite part of making spaghetti and meatballs. Ready? Plop. I don’t know why I love this so much. I just think it’s fun. Watching them all swimming in there like a little meatball hot tub. And when we push them down and cover them all up with that sauce, this is where they’re going to finish cooking and all that flavor is really going to become one. To cook our pasta, I’ll add a generous pinch of salt to some boiling water. Maybe multiple generous pinches of salt. And in goes our spaghetti. Give it a quick mix right away to spread it out and just make sure that nothing sticks. You can cook this according to the package instructions or like I and all Italian grandmothers do, just taste. While that cooks, I’m going to prepare a large bowl with our cheese and some olive oil for when the pasta’s done. I’m also going to remove all those little bits of basil from my tomato sauce. You could certainly leave these in if you like, but I always find that all the flavors already gotten in there. Oh, and don’t forget the parmesan cheese bit. Pasta should be done. Quick taste. Woo! 17 more seconds. It’ll be perfect. When your pasta is done, go ahead and strain it. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but save some of that pasta water and dump it off into your bowl along with a little splash of that pasta water as well as a drizzle of olive oil so nothing sticks together and some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Mix it all up to fully coat your spaghetti. And to plate it, I’ll add down a bunch of messy layers of my spaghetti. Then I’ll cover this with some cheese. I like to layer all of that flavor. Then do a nice even layer of all that red sauce. Don’t worry how much we put right now because we all know that if you ever want to come back for more sauce when you’re eating spaghetti and meatballs, you can’t. You can do whatever you want. And then your meatballs. Don’t let anybody make fun of you for putting too many meatballs. See how even through all the sauce, you can still see that incredible crust. And I’ll finish it off with one more dusting of Parmesan cheese. Not too much, but also not too little. A bit more olive oil. Notice how I’m still layering all that flavor. Some of those crispy breadrumbs. That adds that texture that I was talking about. And last but not least, a few fresh basil leaves for both color and flavor. And that is how you make spaghetti and meatballs. It’s too perfect to eat. I don’t even want to eat it. Psych. I’m gonna eat it. [Music] Oh, that’s so good. [Music]