Italian Meatballs

Every once in a while, I head over to my all-time favorite pizza place–The Ravenite Pizzeria, though we usually just call it Ravenite–and I don’t order a pizza. Instead I get an order of meatballs and a Greek salad. It makes a great dinner! The hand-rolled Italian Meatballs come with house-made pomodoro sauce and some cheese. I love them.

Alas, early on during the pandemic I was forced to make my own Italian Meatballs if I was to have any at all. Luckily, I had worked at a white tablecloth Italian restaurant in Birmingham for a while, and there I learned to make Italian meatballs sort of by accident. The Italian grandmother who made the restaurant’s authentic red sauce simmered meatballs and Italian sausages in it. No breadcrumbs or eggs went in the meatballs, she simply added plain, raw, hand-rolled meatballs and spicy Italian sausages to the pot to flavor the complex sauce. (When she fished the meatballs and sausages–now fully cooked–out of the finished sauce, we got to eat them over pasta for family dinner. Is that a great job perk, or what?)

So in my hour of desperation, when I had a bunch of canned homemade marinara on hand, I wasn’t looking to make a whole pot of sauce, only the meatballs. I knew I’d need breadcrumbs, milk, and egg if I wasn’t poaching them, so I hunted around for proportions and such. I arrived at the recipe below without much study, but everybody seems to like it so I still use it for our Italian Meatballs.

This Italian Meatball recipe makes at least 24 golf ball sized meatballs. That’s a lot for a small family, but extra cooked meatballs freeze so well and are fantastic to have on hand. To freeze, I put the extra meatballs on a plate or small sheet pan and stick them in the freezer for a couple of hours or overnight. Then I transfer them to a gallon freezer bag. It’s easy to take out just as many as you want, whenever you want them.

I usually serve these Italian Meatballs merely smothered in marinara and sprinkled with parmesan. But don’t hesitate to serve them over spaghetti if you prefer. And they make the most excellent meatball po’boys with marinara and cheese on toasted Italian or French rolls. (Yo! Don’t forget the garlic butter when toasting the rolls.)

My Italian Meatball recipe calls for a packet of onion soup mix, which, thankfully, I had on hand during the dark days of the pandemic. Everyone here likes them so much, I haven’t altered the recipe. Substitute the packet with homemade onion soup mix if you must, but the pre-mixed stuff isn’t bad and is cheaper than making it yourself. There are some organic versions available.

If you don’t have homemade marinara sauce, jarred marinara sauce is fine. Use your favorite if you have one. (Last week I used Bertolli Traditional Marinara, and after I rinsed the jar with a glug or two of red wine and added dried basil and a pinch of red pepper flakes, it was absolutely terrific.) Cheese, of course, is obligatory: parm, mozz, a blend–whatever you have, melted on top.

Buon appetito!