That's a Spicy Meatball!

Lidia Bastianich's Meatballs with Spaghetti

Sauce:

2 Cans Plum Tomatoes, 35 oz each

1/4 C Olive Oil

1 C Chopped Onion

1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes*

2 Bay Leaves

Meatballs:

1/2 Lb Ground Pork

1/2 Lb Ground Beef

1 C Breadcrumbs

1/3 Parmesan Cheese, Grated

1/4 C Fresh Parsley, Chopped

2 Cloves Garlic, Minced

1 Egg

1 tsp Salt

For Cooking:

1/4 C Olive Oil

1/4 C Vegetable Oil

Heat a very large pot over medium low heat. Add 1/4 C Olive Oil and Chopped Onion. Saute until onion is translucent. While the onions are cooking, crush the tomatoes with your hands or an immersion blender. You can control how chunky the sauce is in this step - adjust it to your liking!

Once the onions are translucent and cooked through, add tomatoes, bay leaves, and pepper flakes. *1 tsp of pepper flakes will yield a sauce with a bit of bite. If you don't like heat, I highly recommend starting out with 1/4 - 1/2 tsp and adjusting the pepper flake as needed for your personal taste.

Bring the sauce to a light simmer and let it cook while you are assembling your meatballs.

To assemble meatballs, thoroughly mix all ingredients together. You can use your hands or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. I do not recommend a food processor for this process. It will lead to a less desirable texture.

Heat a heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat and add 2 Tbs each olive oil and vegetable oil while you are rolling your meatballs. This recipe will yield about 14 golf ball sized meatballs. You can use a 3 Tbs ice cream scoop for this process - it helps make the rolling go a bit more quickly!

After the meatballs are uniformly rolled, brown them on all sides in the hot skillet, adding oil as needed. Work in small batches to avoid steaming the meatballs. You want a nice, brown exterior. (Don't worry about getting the center cooked at this point. Simmering in the sauce will finish the cooking process.)

As the meatballs are browned, gently drop them into the simmering sauce. Repeat this process until all meatballs are browned and in the sauce. Simmer the meatballs in the sauce for at least 30 minutes. This will cook the meatballs and thicken the sauce a bit.

To serve, spoon meatballs and sauce over cooked spaghetti noodles. Top with Parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper flakes, and a bit of chopped parsley.

---

Seriously, this is by far the best meatball recipe I have ever eaten! I have learned to double the recipe so that we have plenty of leftovers! By doubling the batch, we can eat 7 times and I only have to cook once! We each eat 2 meatballs per meal, and the last double batch I made yielded 30 meatballs. We had dinner, then I bagged the cooled meatballs and sauce and put them in the freezer. Now, when we need comfort food on a cold night, it's a matter of boiling pasta and heating up meatballs!

I've always thought that making meatballs with sauce from scratch was a seriously labor intensive process. Honestly, it's pretty easy! If you've ever made meatloaf, it's about the same amount of effort. It's all in the prep, then you just let it simmer! If you have access to a stand mixer, I highly recommend using it to mix all of the ingredients. Just put the paddle attachment on and let it do the heavy lifting for you! The rest is scooping and browning. Oh - scoop and roll all of your meatballs before you start browning them. It'll make the process run much more smoothly!

You can use meat with whatever fat content that you prefer. I use 90/10 for both the pork and the beef, and these are still tender and delicious! There is no worry about them being dry with this recipe. Lidia has it going on where anything Italian is concerned. The recipe is flawless!

Don't be scared about the sauce only having pepper flakes and bay leaves for seasoning. When you simmer the meatballs in the sauce, the sauce picks up a ton of flavor! This isn't a shrinking violet at all! The flavor is bold and this is a most comforting dish. I prefer to use a nice, thick spaghetti as it holds the sauce well. You do whatever floats your boat and makes you happy!