Meatball Preparation

• Soak the Bread: Cube the bread into small pieces. Place into milk and let soak while you prep the rest.
• Drain & Combine: Once soaked, squeeze out excess milk from the bread using your hands.
• Mix the Meatballs: In a mixing bowl, combine ground pork, beaten egg, chopped parsley leaves, parmesan shavings, soaked bread, salt and pepper.
• Shape & Chill: Mix until homogenous and shape into small meatballs. Let them chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.
• Test the Seasoning: Pan-fry a small patty to taste. Adjust salt or pepper in the remaining mixture if needed.
• Sear the Meatballs: In a hot pan with olive oil, sear the meatballs until browned all over (they don’t need to be fully cooked). Remove from the pan and set aside.

Tomato Sauce

• Start the Base: In the same pan, add more olive oil along with crushed garlic cloves.
• Build the Sauce: Once fragrant, pour in the passata and add basil leaves. Let it come to a gentle simmer.
• Simmer with Meatballs: Add the seared meatballs back in. Cover and let cook on low heat for at least 1 hour.

Final Dish

• Cook the Pasta: Boil the spaghetti or bigoli in salted water until al dente. Reserve some pasta water before draining.
• Emulsify the Sauce: Remove meatballs from the sauce. Add cooked pasta into the sauce and emulsify with a splash of pasta water.
• To Serve: Plate a generous mountain of pasta, top with meatballs, and finish with a shaving of parmesan.

A Brief History - Why Spaghetti & Meatballs Is Not Quite Italian

Here is a fun one - spaghetti and meatballs as a dish is not really Italian. Not in Italy, at least. In the US during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Italian immigrants - mostly from Southern Italy - arrived with very little. Meatballs in Italy (polpette) were small, made from leftover meat, and almost never served with pasta. But in America, meat was cheap and abundant. Generous helpings of protein became a way for Italian-American families to signal prosperity. The dish evolved into something bigger, bolder, and rooted in the immigrant experience - a celebration of abundance rather than tradition. Today it is one of the most iconic Italian-American dishes in the world, even if no Italian grandmother in Naples would recognise it as her own.

Passata vs Canned Tomatoes - Which Should You Use?

This recipe calls for passata - a smooth, strained tomato sauce with no chunks. For meatballs, passata wins. Here is why: you want a silky, coating sauce that clings to the meatballs and pasta rather than a chunky sauce that competes with the texture of the meat. Passata also reduces more evenly and gives you a cleaner, sweeter tomato flavour in the final dish.

That said, if you only have canned whole tomatoes (like San Marzano DOP), crush them by hand before adding. The slight texture and brightness from whole tomatoes works beautifully here too - you will just get a slightly chunkier, more rustic result. Both approaches are valid. Just avoid the pre-seasoned canned tomato sauces - those rob you of control over the final flavour.

Wine Pairing

A medium-bodied red with good acidity is what you want here. The tomato sauce needs a wine that can match its brightness without overpowering the delicate pork meatballs. A Chianti Classico (Sangiovese-based, from Tuscany) is the classic pairing - earthy, cherry-fruited, and high enough in acid to cut through the richness. If you want something more affordable and just as enjoyable, a Southern Italian Nero d'Avola or a simple Montepulciano d'Abruzzo both work well. Avoid heavy, tannic reds like Barolo here - they will steamroll the dish.

Storage and Reheating

Spaghetti and meatballs actually gets better the next day - the meatballs continue to absorb the sauce overnight. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. Keep the pasta and sauce/meatballs separate if possible - pasta stored in sauce will absorb it and become mushy.

To reheat: warm the sauce and meatballs gently on the stove over low heat, adding a splash of water if the sauce has thickened too much. Cook fresh pasta or reheat the pasta briefly in boiling water. For freezing - freeze the meatballs in sauce only (not the pasta). They freeze beautifully for up to 3 months and are ideal for a quick weeknight dinner.