Spaghetti and meatballs is loved all over the world, but here’s the truth, in most parts of Italy we do not serve it the way you might be used to. Traditionally, pasta is the primo, and meatballs are served separately as a secondo, usually with a simple salad or vegetables on the side.
In the province of Teramo, we don’t pile giant sized meatballs on top of pasta. We make tiny, delicate polpettine that melt into a slow-cooked tomato sugo and wrap themselves around thick strands of Spaghetti alla Chitarra, creating what might just be the best bowl of spaghetti you will ever have. This recipe uses just a handful of simple pantry staples. Ground beef, egg yolk and plenty of grated Pecorino Romano form the mini tender meatballs.This is how spaghetti and meatballs is done in proper Italian way. And once you try it this way, it is very hard to go back.
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INGREDIENTS:
For the Meatballs:
200g / 7oz ground beef
1 egg yolk
Grated Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano Reggiano
For the Sauce:
1/4 onion
1 carrot
1 celery stick
2 small cans of peeled tomatoes
For the Pasta & Final Touches:
300g / 10.5oz Spaghetti alla Chitarra
A fresh bunch of basil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
Salt and pepper
1 Tbsp rock salt
METHOD:
How to Make the Sauce
1) Cut the onion and carrot in small pieces. Add them to a small personal blender with a splash of water and blend until smooth. This is your soffritto base.
2) Place a large pot on medium-low heat. Pour in 4–5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Once warm, add the blended soffritto. Stir gently and let it cook for about 7 minutes until soft and fragrant.
3) Blend the peeled tomatoes in your blender. Do not add the liquid from the can yet. Blend only the tomatoes until smooth.
4) Add the leftover tomato liquid directly into the pot with the soffritto. Then pour in the blended tomatoes and stir well to combine.
5) Break the celery stick in half and add it whole into the sauce. Let the sugo cook on medium-low heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Stir occasionally and allow it to gently simmer.
Keep reading the recipe via:
https://www.vincenzosplate.com/how-spaghetti-and-meatballs-is-made-in-italy/
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⏱️⏱️TIMECODES⏱️⏱️
0:00 Introduction to Spaghetti and Meatballs
0:50 Ingredients You’ll Need
2:56 Preparing the Soffritto (The Flavor Base)
3:55 Building the Tomato Sugo
5:38 How to Make Mini Italian Meatballs (Polpettine)
7:54 Cooking the Meatballs Properly
10:07 Pre-Order My New Cookbook, Authentic Italian
10:54 Combining Pasta, Sauce, and Meatballs
13:03 How to Serve Spaghetti and Meatballs
13:41 Time to Eat the Spaghetti and Meatballs, E ora si Mangia
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🎬 #VincenzosPlate is a YouTube channel with a focus on cooking, determined to teach the world, one video recipe at a time that you don’t need to be a professional chef to impress friends, family and yourself with mouth-watering #ItalianFoodRecipes right out of your very own kitchen whilst having a laugh (and a glass of vino!).
35 Comments
Being of Abruzzo descent, I now know why we ways roll smaller meatballs for our lasagna, but not tis small…
I had Chittarra con Pallottine on my last trip to NYC. It was fantastic! Was it as good as your nonna’s? Highly unlikely! But it was good enough for me to return the following night to have it again!
Definitely have to try using mini meatballs in my spaghetti sometime. So what does your nonna think of the use of pasta water in Italian cooking?
Hmmm… about the meatballs, gonna test using a oven since i have a toaster oven
This is where child labour comes in handy, their small hands are ideal to make these little meatballs 😉🤣. Jokes aside, I think I'm going to make this for my grand children and my self. It looks yummy. 👍👍
Oh I'm so hungry now. 🙂 I can taste it only by watching. My only problem: cellery. The moment you mentioned it I thought "Nooo!!! … … …. but I could maybe break it , let it cook with the sauce and then remove it… " I think this is the only (and surprisingly good) way to use it (in a soup). And guess what nonna does. And she makes fresh pasta. Something I always crave and never do. Big ♥ to the nonnas of the world!
I need to find the time to make this. I've never made Spaghetti Meatballs before, especially this way. This look delicious
Your Nonna's brilliant, V!
Vincenzo, great recipe. Big fan of yours in Rochester New York. I've been following you online now for a little over a month and have tried several of your recipes, most of them using your fresh pasta recipe. They've come out perfect. Just pre-ordered your book on Amazon. Looking forward to the recipes and cultural experience in the book.
Deferentially the best spaghetti and meatballs recipe!
I'm going to have to try this again one night when I'm on my own, because last time I used your meatball recipe, It was a calamity and now, years later, I still get suspicious looks when I suggest making meatballs until I say I'll buy pre-made ones…
I've tried your previous version of this recipe, but they didn't have any flavor once they were added to the sauce. I don't know if there's something I'm missing, but all the meatiness and flavor was sucked out of meatballs and they have the consistency and flavor of the terrible canned meatballs in SpaghettiOs. My folks thought they looked like a bunch of Rabbit droppings fell into the sauce.
It was so terrible my family politely asked me to never cook homemade meatballs again and instead serve them the cheap frozen meatballs instead.
The compromise I eventually reached after years of haggling is that I'm no longer allowed to cook fresh meatballs but I can buy the pre-mixed raw ones from the Deli (Caranado) as long as I don't break them down from the larger size and just follow the instructions on the wrapper…
Great video Vincenzo. Those tiny meatballs looks like a pain in the butt to make 😂😂😂 but you get meatballs in every forkful. This recipe is for two servings, in my case it's a serving for me. Keep on cooking Vincenzo.
There was that subject about Nonna using "just" Egg Yolk… What I have found out in practice, when making small and tiny meatballs is, that Egg White makes them pretty try, when not bread added… Egg Yolk's Lecithin makes that difference giving moisture in… But when using a part of bread, you need combiner – so that will be then Egg White… I might be wrong – but my "observation" so far…
mamma mia!💪🤤🌊🏄🏻♀️
Fantastic recipe, a veal and pork mixture in the meatballs is 100% my favorite
Great video as usual ❤️. I’m buying you’re cook book,when you come down under 👍🏼
yeah, it's true, i was pretty hungry after that bloody night, but now I'm cooking ragù Bolognese, but not entirely traditional.( I'd put some pepperoncini into the soffritto, and yes I know it's a crime😸ma i gusti sono gusti🤌. we'll eat it with tagliatelle and the rest goes into the lasagna tomorrow.
Perfetto👌🏻🍝
Trying this tonight 😋
Nice, I was just thinking about making spaghetti and meatballs for the next family meal🙂
I really thought you made a fancy Chef Boyardee for a second when I looked at the thumbnail lol
Find some good brand tortellini and try the meatball broth. You won't regret it
If I make this recipe, can I use Kosher salt instead of rock salt? Where I live, the only "rock salt" available is highway ice-melt, which is toxic and inedible.
AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! greertings from Costa Rica !
no way this is authentic Italian..this is for infants and the elderly…the ingredients might be right,the execution of this gives me Goosebumps…and stop making those silly towers of pasta…ussualy your cooking looks nice,but not here…
We see like dozens of time saving one use kitchen tools. We need one to basically instantly make a bunch of tiny tiny meatballs! I hope this recipe catches on because I would buy that tool in an instant. 😆
Spaghetti with meatballs are a figment of your imagination.
Thanks Vincenzo! I'm going to try this. I think I prefer frying the meatballs.
Mate, you've been holding out on us. This is something I crave.
Making those tiny meatballs looks way too tedious. I'll stick to my regular golf ball sized meatballs.
My Sicilian mum used to make medium size oval shaped polpette and drop them in raw in the home made pomodoro sauce and let them cook in the sauce…. and that was our authentic pasta con polpette 😂 I guess every region in Italy does it differently 😊 from Australia ❤
The only problem is the Italian peeled tomatoes are expensive so just gonna use cherry fresh tomatoes
I used to use a pill maker for small balls, including pasta. It's made from 2 wooden boards which have half sphere channels all along, and you put the pasta on top and make a circular movement with the other board, across. However, it always has been a big mess and in the end, making small balls by hand is meditation 😊
Have you seen the „Meatball” short movie that has won three awards in New York recently? A little bigger meatball was in it! 😀
Beautiful the love you have for your nona. God bless her ! Thanks for the recipe !