Italian Meatballs

We made these meatballs for the famous Rizzardi Italian family, and they loved them. How could we not include them as one of the best recipes on this blog? Since then we improved our recipe by using pancetta, grating our onion, fresh grating our parmesan cheese and always poaching them in our sauces unless we cook them in the oven for appetizer purposes.

They go great with the Bourbon Barbeque Sauce  recipe as cocktail appetizers. They also go great with our spaghetti sauce, as an added yummy element in the Spaghetti recipe..

Ingredients

  • Servings: ”6-10″
  • Difficulty: ”easy”</p>
  • Print

1 1/2 Pounds 80% Ground Beef

1 1/2 Pounds Ground Pork

1/4 Pound “Thin Sliced” Pancetta (Or thin sliced non-smoked bacon)

3 Eggs

1/2 Cup Fresh Grated Parmigiana-Reggiano

1/2 Cup “Grated” Yellow Onion

8 Minced Garlic Cloves

1/4 Cup Fresh Chopped Flat leaf Parsley

3 Tablespoons Fresh Chopped Oregano

1 Tablespoon Fresh Chopped Rosemary

3 Tablespoons Fresh Chopped Basil

1 Cup Seasoned Italian Bread Crumbs

1/2 Cup Heavy Cream

2 Teaspoons Kosher Salt

1 1/2 Teaspoons Black Pepper

2 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

1/1/2 Teaspoons Red Pepper Flakes

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Directions

  1. First take the thin sliced pancetta and chop it up fine into very small pieces. It’s delicious in the meatballs but if you have large chunks it almost taste like grizzle in your meatballs. If you use bacon instead, chop it fine also and don’t get a smoked bacon. The smoke flavor will overwhelm the more delicate nature you are trying to achieve in your meatballs.
  2. Combine the meats in a large bowl and mix well with your fingers but try not to overmix.
  3. Be sure to grate, not chop, your onions. This trick will help keep your meatballs flavorful and moist.
  4. Add all other ingredients and mix with your fingers again without overmixing.
  5. Roll meatballs gently after wetting hands, to the size of golf balls.
  6. Now here you can do one of two things. You can either poach your meatballs in sauce for about 45 minutes to cook them or cook them in an oven, depending on what they are going to be used for. Poaching imparts a great flavor and the meatballs become softer, almost breaking down a bit.
  7. If going the oven route, put parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
  8. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
  9. Bake them in the oven for 18 minutes.
  10. Cut a meatball open either after poaching 45 minutes or oven cooking 18 minutes, to test how done they are.
  11. Both the recipes on this blog for spaghetti/marinara sauce (entrée or meatball sandwich) and bourbon barbeque sauce (appetizers or snacks), are great for these.

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2 Comments

  1. Christina Weis

    These meatballs are by far the best I have ever tasted. I had them with the spaghetti sauce also featured on this site. The meatballs are moist and flavorful.

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