One of the perks about growing up with an Italian mother and grandmother was the food. Whenever my mother or grandmother had a pot of sauce on the stove you could pretty much guarantee there was some meat cooking in there. My grandmother especially, you never knew what she would pull out of that pot, whether it was chicken, pork, sausages, or meatballs they were always delicious. So whenever I am making a pot of red sauce, I will often throw some meatballs into the sauce as well. Here is the link to my red sauce recipe https://stephaniessliceoflife.com/2019/12/30/feeling-saucy/
This meatball recipe is pretty much the same recipe my mother always made, which means it is probably pretty similar to what my Grandmother used to make. She never measured her ingredients, nor do I, but I believe they are pretty similar. I make these homemade meatballs with ground turkey, but you can make them with ground beef too. Let me just say that I did not grow up on turkey meatballs. There was no way my Italian mother or grandmother would have ever made ground turkey anything lol.
Here is my best guess of measurements.
Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey or beef
1/3 cup Italian breadcrumbs
1 tbsp. grated parmesan
1/8 – 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 egg
Mix all of the ingredients together in a medium sized mixing bowl.
Shape the meat into balls with your hands and either cook them in a frying pan or bake them. When I bake them it is at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. When using a frying pan you need to just make sure the meat is cooked through. Turn the meatballs every few minutes to get them brown on every side.
Today I am cooking them in my pot of red sauce so I just wanted them browned in the pan, and then I will let them cook in the sauce for about 1 1/2 hours.
Today in addition to meatballs, I browned a few Italian sausages and put them in a sauce as well. Yum!
As my mother and grandmother would say, mangia!
