Few meals have such universal appeal as spaghetti and meatballs. As a kid, there was nothing more fantastic than walking into my Grandma’s house for Sunday dinner and spying a huge pot of sauce and meatballs simmering away on her copper-brown 1970s era stove. The delightful aroma of garlic, tomatoes, and browned pork and beef always made my stomach howl out loud in hungry anticipation! Even in the sultry heat of a late summer day, without any air-conditioning, my entire family would happily settle in to devour a steaming-hot plateful of my Grandma’s homemade spaghetti sauce, topped off with a pile of her incomparably tasty, velvety-soft meatballs blanketed under a snowy mountain of Kraft parmesan cheese (always from the classic green sprinkle container). It was heaven!
My Dad with his parents ca. 1945. Based on their formal attire and my grandmother’s corsage, I’d guess this to possibly be an Easter Sunday portrait.
Although my grandmother was not Italian (her parents were Polish and Slovak), she learned to make her amazing spaghetti and meatballs from her Italian neighbors during the 1940s. Born in 1914 in the coal patch town of Cuddy, Pennsylvania (a few miles southwest of Pittsburgh) my grandmother moved to nearby Canonsburg, Pennsylvania a few years after marrying my grandfather in 1936. Living in the working-class neighborhood of Canonsburg’s Highland Avenue, where my grandfather worked in nearby coal mines and she worked in the Canonsburg Pottery factory, my grandmother was surrounded by neighbors who were mostly of Italian or Greek heritage. Although she often cooked many dishes from her own eastern European cultural background, such as stuffed cabbage, cabbage with noodles, nutrolls, and perogies, it was her spaghetti and meatballs that I remember most fondly. At some point she taught her daughter-in-law (my mother), how to make this recipe, and it was from my mother that I learned to make this much-loved family favorite.
By the time I was in my 40s, I finally started feeling comfortable and competent in the kitchen, which gave me the confidence and knowledge to make adjustments to this recipe and truly make it my own. Having easy access to fresh, high quality ingredients such as red wine, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil, and percorino romano cheese, all ingredients my grandmother could not easily obtain, has truly helped me to take this already great family recipe to the next level. With over an hour of active prep time and three and a half hours of inactive simmering and rest time, this recipe is indeed a labor of love. However, there are few things more comforting than spending a restful Sunday at home with a huge pot of this sauce and meatballs slow simmering away on the stove with its delicious aroma wafting through the entire house. I hope that you too can make this recipe your own and share it with the people you love. Enjoy!
Spaghetti Sauce & Meatballs: Even Better Than Grandma’s!
Makes 8-10 hearty servings
INGREDIENTS
For the sauce:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 medium to large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 to 2 stalks of celery, very finely diced
1 red or green bell pepper, diced
4 to 5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of dried basil
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1 small can (6 oz) of tomato paste (NOT low salt)
1/2 cup of dry red wine
1 large can (28 oz) of crushed tomatoes
1 large can (28 oz) of whole Italian plum tomatoes
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or a scant 1/2 teaspoon regular table salt)
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
For the meatballs:
Olive oil for frying
3 to 4 pieces of plain white bread, crusts removed
1/4 cup or so or milk
1 pound of ground beef, preferably 80% fat
1 pound of sweet Italian sausage, removed from casings if in links
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup of grated pecorino Romano cheese
3 to 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/4 cup of chopped fresh Italian parsley
1/2 teaspoon or kosher salt (or 1/4 teaspoon of regular table salt
Fresh ground pepper
For serving:
Fresh basil, 5-8 leaves, shredded
Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle
1 to 2 pounds of your favorite dried pasta (1 pound of dried pasta will make four moderate servings), rigatoni goes especially well with this thick and hearty sauce
1 tablespoon of butter
Fresh grated pecorino Romano cheese
PREPARATION
1) Using a large, heavy Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium high heat
2) Sauté onion, celery and pepper until softened, about 6-7 minutes
3) Add in garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute
4) Add in oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, and tomato paste. Sauté, stirring continuously until veggies are incorporated in with the tomato paste and tomato paste begins to darken and caramelize a little, about 3 minutes.
5) Gently add in red wine and stir until incorporated. Add in both large cans of tomatoes, crushing and squeezing the whole tomatoes with your hands. Stir. Fill one of the large tomato cans about 3/4 full with water and add slowly to pot, stirring. Add in salt and sugar.
6) Bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for approximately two hours.
7) After simmering the sauce for about two hours, begin mixing up the meatballs by placing the bread in a very large mixing bowl. Slowly add the milk (adding a little more if necessary), gently turning and folding over the bread with your fingers, until bread is almost soaked, but not so much milk that there is extra liquid in the bowl.
8) Add in the rest of the meatball ingredients and gently mix and fold until the all ingredients are just fully incorporated. Be careful not to overmix! If your meat is straight out of the refrigerator, the meat mixture might be bone-chillingly cold!
9) Lay down a large sheet of parchment or wax paper near your stove. Using your fingers, scoop up approximately 1/4 cup of meatball mixture for each meatball and shape into balls using a rolling motion with your hands and palms. Lay each meatball out on the paper to prepare them for browning.
10) Heat 3-4 Tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat in an extra-large, non-stick skillet.
11) Brown meatballs in batches over medium heat, being careful not to overcrowd your skillet. Carefully turn meatballs after 4-5 minutes to brown as many sides of the meatballs as possible. Sometimes it helps to use two tablespoons, rather than a spatula to turn the meatballs. The meatballs might flatten out on each side, but that’s okay! It’s more important to ensure as much deliciously-browned surface area as possible. Remember that you want a nice, deep brown color. This adds an enormous amount of flavor to the sauce!
12) As your meatballs finish browning, add them right into your pot of simmering sauce. Once all meatballs are added, cover the pot and simmer on medium low for approximately 30 minutes, then remove the lid and simmer on low for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then turn off heat and let the sauce and meatballs rest, uncovered, for approximately 30 minutes.
13) After the sauce has rested, stir a generous drizzle of olive oil and 2 tablespoons (approximately 5-8 leaves) of thinly shredded fresh basil. Sometimes its easiest to stack the leaves and roll tightly into a long cigar shape, then thinly slice the roll, crosswise.
14) Cook pasta in salted water (I usually add in 1-2 tablespoons of kosher salt, or a scant tablespoon if using table salt) according to package directions. Once your pasta almost reaches al dente, drain and place back into the pasta pot. Add in about a cup or so of the spaghetti sauce to your pot of pasta, as well as a tablespoon of butter. Toss over medium high heat, until the butter has melted and the sauce nicely coats your pasta, adding more sauce if necessary.
15) Dish up the sauced pasta onto individual serving plates (or pasta bowls), top off with more sauce, a few of those stupendous meatballs, and fresh grated pecorino Romano (or parmesan if your prefer a milder, nuttier cheese). Enjoy!!!
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ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS BY STACEY UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED.
