Our Best Meatballs

This recipe [upbeat music]

is my ultimate baseline meatball recipe.

All you do is mix everything in a bowl, form the meatballs,

and then we are actually gonna roast these in the oven

before we braise them in tomato sauce, rather than frying.

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So we have bread.

It all starts with the bread.

We have a beautiful loaf of bread here,

and the first thing we're gonna do is take the crust off.

We're using a nice crusty loaf of artisan bread.

The better the bread, the better the meatballs.

The goal is to use day-old bread.

We want it to be a little bit stale

because then it's going to absorb more of the liquids

that are in the recipe.

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Cut the sides off.

We don't really want the crust because it's very dry

and it'll change the texture of the meatballs.

Ideal ratio for this recipe is two pounds of meat

and four cups of bread.

So we have our bread broken down

and now we're going to add our dairy.

Today we're using the milk.

If you don't even have dairy, just use water, it's all good.

We just wanna moisten the day-old bread.

We are making what's called a panade.

It's the bread component of a meatball,

and it's everything.

So the panade is all about texture and moisture,

keeps that meatball super juicy and super tender.

Now we just give it a little stir

and we are gonna let this sit for at least 20 minutes.

So while that bread is soaking,

we're gonna get the rest of our meatball mix ready.

So we're gonna start by cutting an onion.

We're gonna mince these onions very finely.

We don't want any giant chunks of onions in the meatballs.

We wanna make sure the onions cook all the way through

in the short time

that the meatballs are gonna be in the oven.

We have one pound of beef, we have one pound of pork.

I like a fifty-fifty blend of beef and pork.

The pork has so much delicious fat.

For the beef, we use an 80-20 blend,

it works, it's accessible.

It's just the perfect blend of fat and meat.

So now we're gonna season it with a little bit of salt

and some black pepper.

So we have two eggs and the eggs play a vital role here.

They are the binding agent.

That's what's gonna help these meatballs stay as a ball

and not fall apart.

A little bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano,

tiny bit of basic tomato sauce, and that is it.

So at this point, we're gonna mix

all of these ingredients together

and we're gonna thoroughly mix this.

We want a very homogenous mixture here.

At this point,

our bread's been soaking for at least 20 minutes,

so I'm squeezing the bread out and keeping that extra milk.

I've been making meatballs for 20 years,

but the more meatballs that I make, the more I realize

that I don't think you actually can over-mix them.

I think it's an old wives tale.

So it's moist, it's homogenous, it's ready to go.

We have a tray lined with a little bit of parchment paper,

and we're gonna drizzle it with extra virgin olive oil.

You can use a scoop, you can use a spoon,

or you can just grab.

I like the meatballs to be around the same size

so that they bake evenly.

I like the meatballs to be on the uglier side,

so I don't spend so much time doing this

to make them, like, exactly perfect spheres.

It's a rustic dish.

It should look handmade.

They should be a little bit craggily and ugly.

We don't really care about over-mixing them,

but we do care about over compressing,

otherwise you'll end up with a much more dense meatball.

And we want them to be so tender

that they are just almost falling apart.

Our meatballs are formed,

our oven is preheated to 450 degrees.

We're gonna bake them for 20 to 25 minutes.

While the meatballs are roasting in the oven,

we're gonna make our basic tomato sauce.

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After we roast our meatballs,

we're gonna braise them in tomato sauce.

So this is a very basic simple tomato sauce.

These are whole peeled tomatoes

and we're gonna mill them in a food mill.

If you don't have a food mill,

you can either pulse them with an immersion blender

or you can crush them by hand.

So we're using Bianco DiNapoli whole peeled tomatoes.

It's what I serve my kids,

it's organic, they're great tomatoes.

This is going to pass the whole peeled tomatoes

through this plate here with little tiny holes

that is going to break down the whole peeled tomatoes

into a tomato puree.

The tomato sauce adds another layer

of complexity and moisture.

We like a very simple, basic tomato sauce recipe.

It's all about the meatball.

And we try to compliment something

as perfect as this meatball

with something very simple and delicate.

[food processor scraping]

Make sure you scrape the bottom.

[bowl clinking]

We've milled our tomatoes, now it's time to cook the sauce.

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All right, so we have a Dutch oven here.

We are going to start with some extra virgin olive oil,

just enough to coat the bottom,

and then we're gonna add half of a small onion

and we're gonna saute this nice and slowly,

we're not gonna get this pan ripping hot.

We can be gentle.

We don't need to deeply caramelize these onions,

we just wanna cook these onions until they're translucent

and just starting to take color,

but we don't want that much color on them.

So our onions are translucent

and we're ready to add the tomatoes carefully.

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And a little pinch of salt

and we are gonna slowly bring this up to temperature.

That's it, it's kind of simple.

Meatballs are done.

So we're gonna drop the meatballs in the sauce.

These are looking nice and caramelized,

the crispy layer on the outside.

It's gonna be super tender on the inside.

These are gonna braise in this tomato sauce

for a minimum of 20 minutes, maximum of 45 minutes.

If you let these cook in the tomato sauce too long,

they are so light and tender

that they may begin to fall apart.

They're gonna soak up some of that tomato.

All the pork fat's gonna infuse into the tomato sauce.

It's gonna be delicious.

We don't wanna overdo it, nice gentle simmer.

And this tomato sauce is at the perfect viscosity,

meaning I don't want any more liquid to evaporate,

so I'm gonna put the top on, turn it down just a touch

and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

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Take a look at that.

Looking good and I'm getting hungry.

Sauce is nice and thick, but not super concentrated,

to the perfect moisture balance.

And a generous amount of Parmigiano Reggiano.

Always finish with some really good extra virgin olive oil.

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[drum beating]

That's good meatball.

It just melts in your mouth,

firm enough to hold together as a meatball,

but so light and tender.

Teeth just sink right into it.

Tomatoes are so sweet with gentle acidity,

it's the perfect compliment to the meatball.

And so these meatballs are so tender

because we added all of that great bread soaked in milk.

So these meatballs are all about the bread.

That's what makes them so light and tender.

There's probably no dish that is more synonymous

with Italian-American food than meatballs.

It brings you back to your childhood.

So once your meatball mix is made,

you just throw 'em in the oven and roast away.

No frying, no cleaning up the splatters of oil,

and definitely no standing over the stove.

I like meatballs, balls of meat.

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