Grandma Jeanne’s Italian Meatballs | Family Recipe | Italian Meatballs

Grandma Jeanne’s Italian Meatballs

My Italian grandmother makes the best meatballs! They are the only ones I like because I find most meatball recipes to be too hard and dense. These are light and fluffy just absolute perfection! People have dined at my grandmothers house once and years later still rave about these meatballs.

You’ll need

1/2 loaf of either Italian or French bread that is completely stale. I’m talking rock hard. This is the most crucial ingredient to making these the most moist and delicious meatballs you’ve ever had.
1 pound of ground beef
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup or so (I measure this with my heart) of real Parmesan or pecorino cheese.
Pinch of pepper
1 egg
1/2 tsp or so of garlic powder and dried parsley
Olive oil

Preheat your oven to 400°F and line a large baking sheet with either non stick aluminum foil or parchment paper.

Meanwhile in a large bowl soak the bread in water. I know this may seem like an odd step, but this is what makes these the best meatballs you’ll ever eat. Let it soak while the oven is preheating.

Now after your oven has come to temperature take the submerged bread out of the water. Ring out as much water as you can over the bowl and place the soggy bread into a clean dish towel. Ring the bread out over the sink or the bowl squeezing the dish towel tightly to get out as much water as possible.

Now return the soggy bread back to the large bowl along with the ground beef. Next add in all of the remaining ingredients except for the olive oil.

Now with the God given utensils aka our hands (clean of course!) go ahead and mix everything until well combined. You can use a spatula, but I find the ingredients never get as well incorporated that way.

Now using either a large cookie scoop or an ice cream scoop go ahead and scoop out the mixture and roll in your hand to form a ball. Place on the cookie sheet and repeat until you have no more mixture left.

Drizzle them well with olive oil and place them into the preheated oven. If you used the ice cream sized scoop like I did you’ll want to bake these for 40-45 minutes.

If you used the large cookie scoop they will take anywhere from 25-35 minutes. Just keep an eye on them.

We want them to be golden brown and sizzling. You can always check them with a meat thermometer to be sure. We want the temperature to reach 165°F.

I hope you give these a try! I promise you will never use another recipe after trying this one! You also may want to double the recipe and freeze some to have on hand. They heat back up easily in homemade pasta sauce.

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