Italian Small Meatballs (Polpette)
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 60 g fresh breadcrumbs rounded
- 100 ml milk rounded
- 500 g ground beef and pork, mixed, roughly equal parts rounded
- 60 g parmesan-style hard cheese, finely grated rounded
- 1 egg rounded
- 2 garlic cloves, minced rounded
- 15 g fresh parsley, chopped rounded
- 2 g grated nutmeg rounded
- 9 g fine salt rounded
- 2 g black pepper rounded
- 30 ml olive oil, for searing rounded
Sauce
- 700 g passata or crushed tomatoes rounded
- 15 g fresh basil, torn rounded
Method
Method
- Combine the breadcrumbs and milk in a bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes, until soaked to a soft paste.
- Add the meat, parmesan, egg, garlic, parsley, nutmeg, salt and pepper to the breadcrumb paste. Mix with your hands just until evenly combined.
- Roll into small balls, about 15 g each, roughly the size of a walnut.
- Heat the olive oil in a wide pan over medium-high heat. Sear the meatballs in batches for 3 to 4 minutes, turning to colour them on most sides. They won’t be cooked through; that’s fine.
- Pour the passata into the pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Return all the meatballs to the pan.
- Simmer gently, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, spooning sauce over occasionally, until the internal temperature reaches 71°C and the sauce has thickened slightly.
- Stir in the basil just before serving.
Notes
- Soak the breadcrumbs in milk rather than adding them dry. A small, fast-cooking meatball like this one has little margin for error; the soaked crumb is what keeps it tender through both the sear and the simmer, where dry crumbs or starch alone would give a denser, tighter result.
- Sear first, then finish in the sauce. The sear builds flavour on the surface that a pure simmer never develops; finishing gently in the sauce afterward keeps the inside tender and lets the meatballs release flavour into the sauce as they cook the rest of the way through.
- Keep them genuinely small. These are built for soup and for tucking into a bowl of pasta, not as a standalone main; a 15 g ball cooks through gently in the sauce without needing to be seared for long enough to dry out the outside.
- They freeze well, sauce and all. Cool completely, then freeze in the sauce; reheat gently from frozen.
Ingredient substitutions
- All beef, or all pork, works if that’s what’s on hand, though the mix is the more traditional choice.
- A handful of dried oregano in the meatball mixture is a common regional variation.
- Serve over pasta, in a sub roll, or stirred through a light broth for a simple soup.