My Mother's Italian Meatball Recipe
These are the meatballs I ate as a child, and continue to enjoy to this day.
Mangia! With Roger Stone is the newest section of my Substack blog Stone Cold Truth, and it is where I post food (and sometimes drink) related content — like recipes.
While I plan to publish something here every Sunday, I got a bit sidetracked and missed a few weeks after publishing my mother’s Sunday Gravy recipe:
My Mother's Sunday Gravy Recipe
Every Sunday, my mother would rise early to assemble her “Sunday Gravy,” which is what Italian Americans in Philadelphia, much of New Jersey and enclaves of Connecticut called your basic red sauce.
After publication, I had many people reach out about their experience making my family recipe.
posted pictures of his Sunday Gravy on Truth Social, noting that they he added some mushrooms, and poured it over some penne pasta.
left a very nice message:Made your Mom's sauce, Roger. Good stuff! Nothing like the Abruzzese sauce I grew up with. Dick Nixon stopped by and said it was great.
Thanks Roger, for that "gravy" recipe! My grandparents were from Sicily, settled in Trenton, NJ, and called it sauce. Well the grandparents actually called it, what sounded like "sulcul" or something like that. I've made my grandma's but am certainly going to try yours! Love your food, dress philosophy and especially your politics! Thanks so much!
My friends at
wrote:This is amazing Roger!! My fav food is Sunday Spaghetti - ITALIAN! Let's go! 🎉
In this week’s addition, I wanted to share another of my mother’s recipes.
Every good Italian knows their way around a meatball, and like the Sunday Gravy recipe I published in the last edition of Mangia!, every family makes them a little different.
This is the recipe my mother followed — which is what my family continues to make to this day.
Pretty much any day of the week, you can find a couple of these in my refrigerator and/or freezer.
I generally serve them with a generous pour of my Sunday gravy or any other good red sauce, and sometimes plop some ricotta cheese, or freshly grated parmigiano reggiano, right on top —
Sometimes I will eat them with some pasta, and other times just on their own — you really can’t go wrong.
Now on to the recipe:
Italian style meatballs
Yield: 18 to 25 meatballs
Total: 1 hr 30 min
Prep: 40 min
Cook: 45 min
Ingredients:
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVO)
2 tsp Kosher salt
1 large yellow and 1 large red onion, ¼-inch dice
1 ½ pound ground sirloin
1 ½ pound ground veal
1 ½ pound ground pork
½ pound ground mild Italian sausage (no casing)
6 cloves fresh minced garlic
6 large eggs (beaten)
2-1/2 cups Italian bread crumbs
½ cup of Panko bread crumbs
1 cup grated Parmesan
1 cup grated Romano
1 cup grated Asiago
½ cup fresh parsley finely minced
2 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp cup basil
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp fine chopped rosemary
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 cup water
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place 9x11 Pyrex baking dish partially filled with either chicken broth or water on lowest rack.
Place ground meats, breadcrumbs, parsley, cheeses, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, whipped eggs and 1 cup of water into large mixing bowl.
Pour EVO into large skillet/saucepan enough to coat entire pan, bring to medium/high heat and add onions/garlic. Sauté onions/garlic (onions should be soft and slightly brown) Allow sautéed onions/garlic to cool.
Add onions and garlic to the large mixing bowl of meats and hand mix ingredients lightly don’t compress the meatball mix tightly.
Coat large, cooled skillet/saucepan with EVO. Using your hands form the mixture into 2+ inch meatballs (mix should be somewhat wet if not add small amounts of water and remix lightly with hands) In batches carefully place the meatballs in the EVO coated skillet/saucepan.
Fill but don’t crowd cold skillet/saucepan with meatballs then bring to medium-high heat, as oil begins to cook meatballs very carefully with either tongs, spatula or a fork roll the meatballs in place so that they brown evenly on all sides (about 10 minutes).
With the meatball mix being somewhat wet gently squeeze the meatballs with tongs to work out flat spots when rolling in place. Remove meatballs from skillet/saucepan when they have light brown outer coating on all sides, place meatballs onto nonstick baking pan with elevated wire rack.
Allow skillet/saucepan to cool before adding additional meatballs (Do not add meatballs to heated/hot pan one at a time) Always add meatballs to a cooled skillet/saucepan then apply heat for browning.
Place baking sheet with meatballs into 350-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes, at the 25 minute mark cut open one of the meatballs for cook time inspection.
Remove baking sheet from oven, allow to cool for 5 minutes, if needed roll cooked meatballs over paper towel to remove excess fat/grease. At this point meatballs can be added to tomato sauce for serving or placed into 1-gallon ziplok bags for freezer storage.
And there you have it: Italian meatballs.
Mangia!
If you end up cooking up this recipe, let me know how you like it — or better yet, send a picture of the finished product to me via private message here on Substack. I may include your picture in a future post!
