I love eating pasta on Saturday. I don’t know why, it tastes better somehow. My meatballs are SO good that you can even skip the pasta all together and eat them alone with the sauce. This recipe is my go to comfort food and I think you’ll like it too – it’s classic weekend indulgence at it’s peak!
Sauce
2 – 680 ml jars of passata (I like GiGi brand Passata Rustica)
2 onions – rough chop
7 whole cloves of garlic
2 carrots – rough chop
2 celery stalks – rough chop
a few tablespoons of olive oil
1 cup red wine
a ton of fresh basil
generous amount of salt and pepperMeatballs
1/2 pound medium ground meat
1/2 pound ground pork
1 large onion – diced
2 eggs
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
3 tbls milk
salt
garlic powder
montreal steak spice
handful of parsley – chopped
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
olive oil (1 tbs for greasing the pan)
Method:
For the Sauce:
- Heat up the Olive oil in a dutch oven and stir fry the onion with salt and pepper. Add the red wine and turn heat to high, stirring for 10 min
- Pour in the passata and add the garlic, carrot, and celery. Bring to a boil and turn heat down to low. Stir in the basil leaves
- Cook partially covered for 2 hrs stirring every so often.
For the Meatballs:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
- Put the breadcrumbs in a small bowl and soak in the milk for 5 min
- In a large bowl add all the ingredients and mix well with your hands
- Grease a cookie tray with the olive oil. Form meatball mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls and drop them onto the tray (they can be close together as they will shrink)
- Bake for 20 minutes
- Serve hot with the sauce or break up the meatball in the sauce to serve with some spelt pasta if you want!
