Easy Italian-style Meatballs

Kick spaghetti night up a gear with these easy, super-delicious meatballs. Everyone will be begging you to make them again!

My excuse for not making meatballs a part of spaghetti night for so many years is that spaghetti is supposed to be a dinner you can throw together in 15 minutes or less.

Adding meatballs to the menu makes spaghetti for dinner take a more time-consuming endeavor (about 15 minutes longer). I’m out of excuses.

The relatively short ingredient list includes things I normally stock in my pantry or freezer, and as long as I’ve remembered to defrost the meat, it’s a simple task to throw everything together, roll out the meatballs, and pop them in the oven for a few minutes.

But the meatballs turn a ho-hum spaghetti dinner into something a little more gourmet.

Notes About the Ingredients

Meat

I like to use a mix of ground beef and Italian sausage. You could substitute ground pork for the Italian sausage, but the seasonings won’t be quite the same.

Use a good quality Italian sausage for the best flavor results.

I’ve made these meatballs with just the ground beef, and while still tasty, the result lacks that certain pizzazz you get with the addition of Italian sausage.

Bread

Almost any type of bread will work in this recipe. You can even make the whole recipe gluten-free by using gluten-free bread.

I prefer to use leftover sourdough bread.

If you’re using stale bread, dense bread like sourdough, dry bread crumbs, or crushed-up crackers, you absolutely need to soak it in milk. Don’t skip this step.

Don’t worry if the volume of bread seems like too much for the amount of milk. It will soak it up, and you don’t want the bread to be overly soggy.

If you’re using very fluffy white bread, it’s best to skip the soaking step and add the milk directly to the meat mixture or leave it out altogether.

The bread part of the recipe is very forgiving. Use whatever you’ve got on hand.

Parmesan

These wouldn’t be Italian-style meatballs without the Parmesan!

Purists would say you must use freshly grated, authentic Parmesan. However, I can’t justify that in my grocery budget. If you can, go for it.

But the pre-grated Parmesan cheese in a bottle is perfectly satisfactory in this case, and the meatballs are satisfyingly cheesy.

Feel free to substitute with similar hard Italian cheeses, such as Pecorino-Romano.

Spices

An all-purpose Italian spice blend is the easiest to throw in here. If you don’t keep that on hand, or perhaps you just ran out, use an equivalent amount of oregano, thyme, and basil.

For a slightly different flavor twist, try using Herbs de Provence instead of Italian seasonings. It includes the fennel flavor you get in the Italian sausage, as well as a slightly floral note from the lavender. Delicious!

Spicy-micy Meatyballs

The very first step of putting these meatballs together (after preheating the oven) is getting your bread ready. You want it to have some time to soak and soften before adding it to the rest of the mixture.

Remove the crusts from your bread, and chop the bread into small cubes. If you’re looking for an excuse to use your food processor and love to have more dishes to wash up, you can pulse the bread into crumbs. Or you can skip that, and mash up the bread once you’ve soaked it in the milk.

Soak the bread for 5-10 minutes until it’s soft enough to mash into tiny bits. You don’t want any large chunks dominating in a meatball.

Mix all the ingredients, including the soaked bread, in a large bowl until evenly distributed.

Form the mixture into 1- to 2-inch balls and place on a baking tray. I like to use aluminum foil or parchment paper to make the cleanup easier (and so the meatballs don’t stick or scorch on the pan).

About the size

I like to make smaller meatballs simply because they cook faster. Ten minutes should do it for 1-inch-sized meatballs. Larger ones will need up to an extra 5 minutes.

I also like smaller meatballs because they’re easier for my young kids to eat without needing me to cut them up. And I like that they fit better on a pile of spaghetti without rolling off. That way, my kids don’t have to roll their eyes when I start singing, “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese…”

But meatball size is entirely a matter of personal preference. Make them as big or small as you want, just adjust cooking times for larger meatballs. 2-inch meatballs should take about 15 minutes in the oven.