You’ve Been Making Meatballs All Wrong, According to This Italian Grandma

Spaghetti and meatballs is one of those classic comfort meals that will always be a dinner staple. Even if you aren’t whipping up Sunday sauce every week like your grandma used to, anytime a homemade sauce with meatballs makes an appearance, everyone knows they’re in for a treat. 

Many of us have likely been using the same sauce and meatball recipe for years. Maybe it’s one that’s been in your family for generations, or one that you saw on Allrecipes that—just like grandma—you’ve never strayed from. But, if you are willing to try a new method, we just learned a—slightly controversial—trick for making flavorful, tender meatballs. 

According to one Italian grandmother, you shouldn’t bake or fry your meatballs, but instead plop them, raw, into your simmering sauce. 

Why You Shouldn't Bake or Fry Your Meatballs

Instagram user Antoinette’s Italian Kitchen says the secret to her meatballs—which she says are “known all over”—is adding them to the sauce while they’re still raw. 

“When you fry them, they become hard—almost like a hamburger,” she says in a video. “When you bake them, they also become hard and the flavor is left in the baking dish.” 

By simmering them for an hour and a half in the sauce, “the flavor from the sauce will go into my meatball, and the meatball flavoring will go into the sauce—[and] they become very tender,” she says. 

Antoinette says the method comes from Naples, Italy, and was introduced to her by her father. Now it’s the only way her family has been making sauce and meatballs for the past 50 years. 

While the method might sound strange, Antoinette isn’t the only one who swears by it. Our top-rated Italian Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs recipe doesn’t call for cooking the meatballs first, either. 

In our recipe, raw meatballs are dropped into the simmering sauce and cooked for 30 minutes, until they’re no longer pink in the center. If you’re concerned about eating undercooked meat, you can always check that the meatballs have reached the safe internal temperature of 160°F before pulling them off the stove. 

“I was leery of making this without first pre-cooking the meatballs, but this is by far the best spaghetti and meatballs I have ever made. The meatballs ended up a nice brown color, they were not over cooked and I think putting them in before browning allowed some of the meat flavor to seep into the sauce,” reviewer Navy_Mommy raved.

It’s definitely one of those recipes you have to try to believe. So, if you’re looking for “succulent” meatballs, as Antoinette calls them, give her method a go.