Simply Homemade: Italian Meatballs

I don’t know about all of you but there are few things in life that make me happier than an Italian meal! I’m not entirely sure where this love originated from and I, in no way, claim that my Italian based recipes are authentic. My incredible family didn’t originate from Italy but that doesn’t stop me from making (and thoroughly enjoying) my simple favorites. Cue these Italian meatballs…and homemade pasta, slow simmered marinara sauce, and a nice glass of red wine to pair with it all 😉

This week’s post started in a very roundabout way. A fellow food-loving coworker recently introduced me to a new spaghetti sauce and it calls for lots of onion to be simmered in it and then removed and discarded. My coworker insisted that was a borderline crime and the onion is absolutely delicious after being cooked down in the sauce and soaking up all that flavor. When I made the pasta sauce, I did remove the onion before serving it over pasta. Honestly, by that point the sauce had already absorbed the flavors and my particular child does not take a shining to “chunky” sauce.

However, instead of discarding the onion that had soaked up beautifully flavored sauce, I decided to roughly chop it and then put it back into some of the aforementioned leftover sauce from our pasta meal. Later in the week, I made a large batch of these homemade meatballs and added some when warming up the leftover sauce with onions. I put the mixture on some lightly toasted subs with melted provolone cheese. Voila! Pretty awesome meatball subs (if I do say so myself). This same idea would be incredible with peppers, onions, and Italian link sausage for some grinders (sandwiches) but I was craving these meatballs this week and knew you all would want this recipe too! Bonus, I had extra meatballs that I froze and can use for spaghetti with meatballs or more meatball subs in the future.

This recipe is quite simple and the results are dynamite! I strongly encourage you to make a double batch and freeze the extras so you can enjoy these anytime with very little grocery shopping or prep time required. As with most of my recipes, feel free to adjust to your liking. For example: prefer sausage over hamburger or vice versa? Double the amount of one and remove the other. Personally, I love the mixture and the addition of texture by having both but totally up to you! Love the boost of flavor from the pesto? Increase the amount! Want more spices, go right ahead! You get the gist, right? I hope you enjoy this staple recipe and that it brings you as much joy as all Italian food brings me and my family!