Meatballs in sauce. Easy recipe, my grandmother's style

Ingredients

• For the meatballs: 750 g of minced meat (pork, beef or mixed)
• 2 medium eggs
• 150g of crustless sliced ​​bread
• 5 tablespoons of whole milk
• 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley, plus a little more for sprinkling
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion
• Salt, nutmeg and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
• Flour for coating the meatballs
• For the sauce: 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 100 g of peas
• 400 g of potatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 125 ml of white wine
• 1/2 liter of chicken broth and water (if necessary)
• A few strands of saffron
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper (to each household's taste)
• Mild extra virgin olive oil (for frying meatballs and for the sauce)

Homemade meatballs in sauce have always reminded me of my childhood, of my mother's homemade recipe.

One of those meals that's a hit when you're little and that you ask for every day. Specifically, this is the recipe for meatballs in a casserole dish or in sauce, just as my grandmother Lucrecia taught me. Its flavor is intense, a blend of all the memories of how my grandmother made the meatballs and how the whole family shared the casserole dish.

I always used to grab four meatballs and a ton of fries. Here's a simple homemade meal, a healthy and delicious way to eat meat and vegetables—a truly luxurious one-pot meal. Kids, and even some adults, will love it.

I hope you'll give them a try.

How to make vegetable sauce

• Wash and finely dice the onion. Slice the garlic clove and place it in a shallow saucepan. Add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and gently sauté the onion and garlic.
• Wash and chop the carrots and red bell pepper. Once the onion has softened, add the remaining ingredients and sauté. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Add a teaspoon of flour to the saucepan and toast it for a minute, stirring well. Let the ingredients release all their liquid for about 5 minutes. Once the liquid has reduced, pour in the white wine and let it simmer over very low heat. This process will take approximately 15 minutes, ensuring the carrots are perfectly cooked along with the other vegetables.

Prepare the meatballs

While the vegetables are cooking, we prepare the meatball mixture.

• Season the minced meat, both beef and pork, with salt and pepper in a large bowl.
• We break the two eggs and add them along with the nutmeg, fresh parsley (or dried if we don't have any), and the crustless bread slices that we've previously soaked in milk for a few minutes. We let the mixture rest.
• We're going to cook the onion and garlic for a few minutes. This will soften the onion and give our meatballs a more uniform texture. It will also slightly reduce the strong flavor of the garlic and onion, making the meatball mixture milder.
• Finely chop the 2 cloves of garlic (removing the inner sprout or core to avoid indigestion) and the onion into small pieces. Bring water to a boil and add the onion and garlic. Let it cook for 2 minutes.
• Drain and cool with cold water before adding to the previous mixture. Once it's at a good temperature, mix it with the meat.
• Mix everything well with your hands until the ingredients are combined. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for one hour in the refrigerator.

Shape of the meatballs

• After the resting time has passed, we take the meat out of the refrigerator.
• Without fear we start working the dough making small balls (or large ones, that's up to you) which we will then roll in flour.
• To do this, put flour on a plate. Using a spoon, scoop out a little minced meat and shape it into a ball with your hands. Roll it once, making the first round meatball. Roll it in the flour on the plate, shape it a little more, and place it on another clean plate, and so on.

Fried and stewed with the sauce

• We placed them on a plate while we cooked them in the pan. We shook them a little to remove the excess flour.
• Fry in very hot extra virgin olive oil, about three minutes is enough. Set aside.
• Add the peas, meatballs, saffron (previously toasted), and bay leaf to the casserole dish with the vegetable sauce. Once the wine has reduced slightly, add the hot chicken broth and simmer for 10 minutes.
• If the sauce becomes too thick, thin it with water (always hot so as not to interrupt the cooking process). When the sauce is ready, taste it for salt and adjust if necessary.
• We let them rest for about 5 minutes while we fry the potatoes.

Presentation and garnish ideas

Fry the potatoes however you like. We serve them piping hot, just as they are—a great one-pot meal.

Below are some more side dish ideas if you don't want to make fries. They're all equally fantastic:

Tips for perfect meatballs in sauce

There are hundreds of ways to prepare this, each with its own little tricks. Here are some tips to improve this recipe:

• For these meatballs, I like to mix 50% pork and 50% beef. They would also be delicious as meatballs with chicken or just pork.
• If you don't drain the bread soaked in milk well when making the meatball mixture, it won't bind properly because there will be too much moisture. You can add a little breadcrumbs to make it compact, cohesive, but still moist. Be careful not to let it dry out, or you'll end up with lumps of meat instead of balls.
• To make the meatballs softer and juicier, add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to the meat mixture.
• One way to prevent the meat from sticking to your hands when making the balls is to wet them so they are damp (they don't have to be dripping wet, just damp).
• When preparing the meatballs, you shouldn't pile them up, or they will end up sticking together and losing their shape.
• The peas can be substituted with a package of frozen mixed vegetables.
• When seasoning the meat, you can add garlic powder, salt and parsley or your favorite spices: thyme, sage, basil, oregano…
• Be very careful when toasting saffron because it burns in a matter of seconds (depending on the heat of the pan) and becomes unusable. If this happens, it's best to throw it away, and if you don't have any more saffron, you can use a little food coloring.
• Just like with croquettes, I always make extra meatballs so I can freeze them. That way, on any other day when I'm short on time, I have a great lunchbox ready.

Tips from our community

Those with celiac disease or following a ketogenic diet can omit the bread and substitute it with grated Parmesan cheese and egg. Modern meat grinders produce a purée that doesn't easily fall apart when cooked or fried.

The ratio is approximately 450g of ground meat to 50g of grated cheese and one egg.

Pablo Drbal

A trick to flip meatballs without getting your hands dirty and to make them all the same size is to shape them in a small glass.

You put some flour in a glass, take a piece of meat, put it in the glass with the flour, and roll it around inside the glass, shaking the glass. They come out perfectly, and you use half the flour.

Last revision: September 2, 2026

We've worked 5 hours and 20 minutes to bring you this recipe. How is that calculated?

90 minutes cooking, 30 minutes taking and editing photos, 120 minutes recording and editing the video, 45 minutes writing, and 35 minutes organizing and publishing everything on the website and social media. 😊 Not counting the time we spend researching how to make the best recipe, buying the ingredients, eating it (and making it again if it wasn't perfect), reading your comments, and answering your questions.

Categories: Family Meals, Minced Meat Recipes, Pork Recipes, Beef Recipes, Meatball Recipes, Meat and Poultry Recipes, Dinner Recipes, Recipes for Kids