I’ve tasted so many different meatballs growing up here in NYC. Some are too spicy while others are made with too much bread and/or breadcrumbs.
My friend, Diana (aka Diana Bagels), spent an afternoon teaching me how to make the best meatballs I’ve ever tasted. And how could I not share the recipe with all my friends?
So let’s get started…
Ingredients
- 10 cloves of Fresh Garlic chopped
- 10 Fresh Basil Leaves chopped
- 10 Fresh Parsley Leaves chopped (Italian flat leaf variety)
- 2 Handfuls Locatelli™ Pecorino Romano cheese grated
- Salt and Pepper
- 2 pounds Ground Beef (Chuck)
- 1 pound Ground Sirloin
- 5 Fresh Oregano Leaves chopped
- 2 large Eggs
- 6 slices White Bread
- 1 cup Whole Milk
- Fresh Breadcrumbs* (2 handfuls)
- Olive Oil for frying
In a big mixing bowl, soak white bread in milk to moisten.
Drain milk.
Add all other ingredients.
Mix well with hands. Oh, the gooey mess…LOL!
Form big meatballs. If you make the meatballs too small, they will fall apart in your sauce.
In a skillet, fry all sides of meatballs in Olive Oil over a medium flame.
Add 1/2 of them to the Italian Tomato Sauce recipe here. We eat the other 1/2 of the meatballs while we’re cooking the sauce!
* Making fresh Bread Crumbs is easy peasy. Just take day old Semolina Italian bread and put it in the food processor or blender until it’s fine.
Enjoy!
THE DOMESTIC DIVA'S DISASTERS™ 
I should have made these for dinner tonight. Sounds so, so yummy!
I made these for dinner tonight and they were awesome!! My family loved the texture, they were so soft. Yum!! Thanks for sharing the recipe 🙂
Julie
The Secret Recipes for “Best Ever Italian Gravy/Sace and Meatballs” doesn’t give the approximate amounts (quarts of sauce)) and number of meatballs the recipes will make.
Can you email me the apx. amounts?
Thnk you
Tom…it’s enough sauce to make the Eggplant Parmigiana and have dinner for 2 nights (family of 6). My “guessitmate” is approximately 3 – 4 quarts of sauce and 16 – 18 meatballs.
Your recipes are good but to print them out I get about 9 pages of drivel. I just want the recipe and not pages and pages of comments. It would be nice if you could give us an option for just printing the recipe. I apologize if you already did that and I just overlooked it.
Bill…I agree. Once I redesign my blog this Summer and figure out how to do, I’ll go back and edit my recipes. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
If you simmer it in the sauce or bake it, how will it come out? Also, my biggest problem is not getting that smooth texture once it is cooked, will this recipe solve that? I heard smoked paprika gives it a nice touch!
Making these right now! Looks and smells incredible!!! Thanks so much for taking the time to share!!!
cut and paste into an email to yourself.
I need help when it comes to browning the meatballs. I’ve made this recipe 3 times. I love it. The only thing I haven’t gotten down is how to brown the meatballs without struggling with them sticking to the pan. I have tried stainless steel and non stick skillet. I’ve tried different oils. I’ve tried adjusting the temperature. I even tried putting them in the over instead. They still stick to the pans and I have a hard time turning them to brown. They fall apart. A friend suggested just dropping them straight into the sauce to cook which I did once. But I’m thinking they’ll hold together better if I get them browned. (If I could just get them browned without falling apart and sticking in the first place!) What do you do?
I made these meatballs along with your tomato sauce recipe. We had it on top of homemade cavatelli. It was delicious! Thanks for the recipes.
STILL!!!….The BEST Meatballs on the net….It helps to know how to cook Italian…,Pinches , Handfulls , etc…But this recipe is the Balls!!!
Thanks Uncle Dave!
lisa k. oil your stailess steel fry pan , put it on burner and let the oil smoke just a bit , coll wipe clean, add little olive oil , let it get a little hot add balls, turn with fork or spoon. or bake them in the oven at 350 , then add to sauce.
Hi, I cannot soak the bread with milk! It turns my stomach. If I have someone do it for me then knowing that it’s in the meatballs would prevent me from enjoying them. Is that stop really necessary? Is there a replacement for it?