Homemade Spaghetti & Meatballs with Sausage
Let me teach you how to make this nostalgic recipe for homemade spaghetti and meatballs with baked beef and pork meatballs, and poached, sliced sausage. The spaghetti sauce cooks slowly stovetop, until the liquid has reduced. And although it can take a while for that to happen —between 2 and 3 hours — this recipe is 100% worth waiting for because of the way the spaghetti sauce’s flavor intensifies over time. Recipe yields 2 quarts of sauce and 24-30 meatballs and freezes wonderfully!
Ingredients
For the Sauce
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion (quartered)
- ½ large yellow onion (minced, save the other half for the meatballs)
- 6 cloves garlic (minced)
- 2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
- 1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes (San Marzano if you can find them, but any plum tomato variety will do)
- 1 large carrot (peeled and cut in half)
- 2 stems fresh basil (save the leaves for later)
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- ½-1 teaspoons diamond crystal kosher salt (to taste)
- ¼ cup fresh parsley (chopped)
- ¼ cup fresh basil (chopped)
For the Meatballs and Sausage
- 1 lb ground beef (20/80 or 15/85 ideally)
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1 package Italian sausage (assume ½ sausage per person)
- ½ large yellow onion (minced, the other half of the onion from the sauce)
- 3 cloves garlic (minced)
- ¼ cup fresh parsley (chopped)
- 3 tablespoons fresh basil (chopped)
- ¼ cup finely grated parmesan cheese
- ⅓-½ cups Italian bread crumbs (use the larger amount of bread crumbs for softer meatballs)
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil (for searing the sausage)
For the Pasta
- Pasta (whatever shape you want, however much you need to feed however many people are eating, cooked according to package directions)
Instructions
The Sauce
- Preheat oven to 325°F with one rack on lowest setting for the meatballs and the other one or two notches above it.
- Heat large oven safe pot or Dutch oven over medium-low heat on the stove. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and swirl it around. When it starts to shimmer, add the minced onions and sauté until translucent, stirring occasionally. The goal is to for the onions to release their juices, not brown. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for 1 minute more (garlic cooks faster than onions, so adding it last prevents it from burning).
- Add the canned crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. One at a time, add the whole peeled tomatoes, squeezing each tomato in your hand over the pot before gently dropping it in. Once all the tomatoes are in, pour the remaining liquid from the can into the pot and stir.
- Add the carrot, onion quarters, bay leaves, basil stems, red pepper flakes, dried oregano, and pepper to the pot. Stir until everything is submerged.
- Put the lid on the pot at a slight angle so that steam can escape, and place it in the oven for 2-3 hours until it has reduced by ⅓ and is deep red in color. Stir every hour. NOTE: If making meatballs, now is a good time to do so!
- When the sauce has reduced and taken on a dark red color, take the pot out of the oven and remove and discard the carrot, onion quarters, bay leaves, and basil stems. Stir in chopped fresh basil and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- If eating immediately, keep the pot on the stove on low heat to poach the sausages and heat the meatballs. Add only the number you plan to eat that night.If prepping ahead, let the sauce cool before transferring to an airtight container and placing in the fridge or freezer.
You may want to wear an apron for this part btw! Squeezing tomatoes gets messy.
If you don't have a lid for your big pot, use loose-fitting aluminum foil with one or two holes poked in it.
The Meatballs
- Combine ground meat, onion, garlic, parsley, basil, breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, egg, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Mix with your hands just until combined. Do not overwork it.
- Shape golf ball sized meatballs and arrange them in rows on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 325°F for 20 minutes.
- If using immediately, add desired number of meatballs to finished spaghetti sauce and poach for an additional 20 minutes.
- If prepping ahead, let cool on the sheet pan before transferring to an airtight container in the fridge or freezer. Reheat by placing in warm spaghetti sauce on the stove for 20-30 minutes before eating.
The Sausage
- Heat spaghetti sauce on the stove until warmed through. Submerge the sausages in the sauce for 20 minutes at medium-low heat.
- In the last few minutes of poaching, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a medium skillet over medium heat until shimmering.
- Remove the sausages from the sauce, being careful not to tear the delicate outer skin. Gently shake or scrape the excess sauce back into the sauce pot. Pat the sausages dry with a paper towel.
- Place the sausages in the skillet and cook 3½ minutes on each side.NOTE: The sausages will brown quickly because of the sugars from the tomato sauce, but if the sausages start smoking, lower the heat.
- Remove sausages from pan and let rest on a cutting board for 5 minutes.
- Slice into rounds and add back into the spaghetti sauce.
To Serve
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and return to pot. Toss pasta with a few tablespoons of spaghetti sauce, just enough to lightly coat the noodles so they don’t stick together.
- Heat (or reheat) sauce over medium-low heat. Add desired number of meatballs. Poach, pan-fry, and slice sausage according to directions above. Add sausage back to sauce.
- Serve sauce over noodles in bowls, OR place the pasta and sauce (with meat or with meat on the side) in separate serving bowls on the table and let diners serve themselves.
- Garnish with additional grated parmesan cheese and thinly sliced fresh basil if desired.
RECIPE NOTES
- My big pot can't fit in the oven or isn't oven-safe. What else can I do? Keep the pot on the stove at a low simmer for 2-3 hours instead. Make sure you stir it every 20-30 minutes or so since the heat is only coming from the bottom, and you don't want anything to burn!
- Before you get started making the sauce, preheat the oven to 325°F and arrange the oven racks so you have space to cook the meatballs while the sauce is reducing in the oven. I usually do the meatballs on the lowest oven rack, and the sauce on a rack one or two notches above. The amount of space you need will depend on the height of your pot. Remember to include space for the lid to fit!
- Both the sauce and the meatballs will stay good in the fridge 3-5 days and in the freezer up to 3 months. Meatballs can be defrosted in the sauce from frozen.
- If you want homemade meatballs but don't have time to make meatballs and sauce from scratch on the same night, you can always make the meatballs ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze them.
- The sausages can be poached all at once and then refrigerated in an airtight container. Pan fry, rest, and slice before adding to the sauce. DO NOT freeze the sausages after poaching.
- Adding the cooked meatballs and sausage to the sauce before serving is mostly to get them up to temperature and to give them a chance to absorb some tomato-y flavor. Since they’re fully cooked, however, you can serve them on the side if you need to.
- Variations:
- Spicy - Add up to 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes to the sauce, add ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes to the meatball mixture, and/or use hot Italian sausage in the sauce.
- Vegan - Serve without meatballs and sausage or use frozen vegan meatballs and vegan sausage!
- Sweeter/More Vegetables - Instead of a whole peeled carrot that you remove from the sauce, finely grate the carrot and cook it with the onions and garlic. It will make for a sweeter sauce with more vegetables in it.