Sunday sauce sounds like a project but it's easier to make than you think. It's meant to be cooked all day from morning to mid-afternoon.
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00:00 How's it going, everyone?
00:01 It's Justin here in the Delish Kitchen studios.
00:03 Sunday sauce is like the ultimate weekend cooking project.
00:07 It's just enough work that when you finish,
00:09 you're gonna feel really accomplished and satisfied,
00:12 but also, secretly, you're gonna be able to sit
00:14 for like two hours and just like stir it a couple times.
00:17 It's not too much work.
00:18 I love it.
00:19 It's packed with three types of meat
00:22 and so much concentrated flavor
00:24 that gets cooked down over hours.
00:26 It's gonna be delicious.
00:27 Let's get into it.
00:28 (dramatic music)
00:30 Ask anyone that makes a like long cooked meat sauce.
00:32 They're gonna tell you their opinion
00:34 on what should be in it,
00:35 whether it just be ground beef or brazol or whatever.
00:38 For this recipe, we're using three meats.
00:39 It's gonna be meatballs we're gonna make in a little while,
00:41 some Italian sausage, and some spare ribs.
00:44 This is a great cut when you want a braising meat
00:47 that's not gonna be that expensive,
00:48 but still has that tender goodness
00:50 and it gets to keep us on theme
00:52 with the pork situation going on here.
00:54 If you wanted to use like short ribs and get really bougie,
00:56 that could be amazing.
00:57 Really nice and tender and will cook down well.
00:59 But with any type of ribs,
01:00 we're gonna have to clean them up
01:01 before they get in to the pot.
01:03 So this is like the top side
01:04 that has like the defined ribs on here.
01:06 You're gonna flip it over and you're going to see,
01:08 this is like a little bit of a meat cap on ours,
01:11 but there is going to be this milky white membrane
01:15 on your ribs.
01:16 You want to remove that.
01:17 It can be a little tricky.
01:18 After you do it the first time, it will be easier though.
01:21 You're essentially gonna find a little part
01:22 to get in there with your fingers.
01:24 It'll be on the edge.
01:25 So it kind of feel like you're separating
01:27 like a little piece of skin off of it.
01:29 And you're just gonna have to like pull it back,
01:30 holding the meat and slowly pulling back that membrane
01:33 until it's removed.
01:34 This is when I feel at my like most caveman
01:37 where I'm just like pulling flesh off of flesh.
01:40 It's kind of grotesque, but it's very satisfying.
01:43 These look really good.
01:44 I'm now gonna season them with about a teaspoon of salt.
01:48 I like to remove one glove so I can have one meat glove
01:51 and one salt glove.
01:52 So I can sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle
01:54 and then rub in with the other hand
01:56 so you keep your salt cellar clean.
01:58 Once you've seasoned all the ribs,
01:59 you're gonna go ahead and slice in between the bones,
02:01 making sure to leave some space
02:03 so that each rib has meat on either side.
02:05 So you're not getting like a lopsided boy.
02:07 It'll mess up all the rest.
02:09 Anytime you braise something,
02:10 you're gonna cook a meat for a long time.
02:12 You're gonna want to start by browning it first.
02:14 Not only is that gonna caramelize the outside of the meat,
02:17 build up some really incredible flavors,
02:19 but it's also gonna add fond to the bottom of the pan,
02:21 which is the crispy bits that are gonna get lifted up
02:24 when we add our liquid and incorporate it into the sauce
02:26 or just build in layers of flavor.
02:28 It's an extra step, but it's really important.
02:30 I promise.
02:31 So get yourself a heavy bottomed,
02:33 largest Dutch oven or sauce pot.
02:36 And we're gonna go in with a glug of olive oil,
02:37 kind of just enough to maybe coat the bottom of the pan
02:39 a little bit.
02:40 Then we're gonna go in with our spare ribs.
02:42 We're gonna brown them off, turning once,
02:44 just to make sure that everything's nice and golden brown
02:46 on all sides.
02:47 We're gonna remove those
02:49 and then go in with our Italian sausage and do the same.
02:53 Remove everything to a different plate
02:54 and then we can get our sauce started.
02:56 Time to go in with our aromatics.
02:57 There should be enough fat at the bottom of this,
03:00 but if you need to, you can add an extra glug of oil.
03:03 We're gonna go right in with our onion that's been chopped
03:06 as well as 12 chopped garlic cloves.
03:09 We're gonna saute them about like eight minutes
03:11 until they're softened and just starting
03:12 to get golden brown.
03:14 While these go ahead and finish cooking,
03:16 let's talk about tomatoes.
03:18 We're using two canned tomato products.
03:20 We're gonna be using crushed and tomato puree.
03:23 This is a texture conversation.
03:25 Same product, same tomato,
03:26 but the crushed tomato's gonna add a little bit of bite
03:29 without being too much like diced
03:30 and the puree is gonna be smooth
03:32 and really fill out the body of the sauce.
03:34 This is because this is gonna reduce for a long time.
03:36 It's gonna cook for over two hours.
03:38 So if you just had diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes
03:41 or whole tomatoes that you crushed in your hand,
03:43 it would get too thick by the end of it.
03:44 This gives us a good balance of both.
03:46 So once your onions and garlic are nice and cooked down,
03:49 we're gonna go in with both our crushed tomatoes
03:52 and our tomato puree.
03:54 And then we're gonna do the classic Italian sauce
03:56 making trick so you don't lose any sauce in the can itself.
03:59 We're gonna fill it with water and dump that in as well.
04:02 Then we're gonna go in with a bunch of basil,
04:04 again, adding flavor.
04:05 Then we're gonna add back in our ribs and our sausage.
04:09 Once your meat goes back in here,
04:12 first of all, it's gonna smell delicious already.
04:14 I'd eat this as is, but we're not gonna do that
04:16 'cause this is gonna cook for a long time.
04:17 Everything's gotta cook down, get tender, get delicious.
04:19 Marry all the flavors.
04:20 So we're going to get this to a simmer
04:22 and we're gonna put it over medium low heat
04:24 and then we're gonna cover it partially,
04:26 like leave a little crack open so steam can get out
04:29 so we can still reduce,
04:30 lose some of that liquid to evaporation.
04:32 And it's gonna cook for about two hours on this low simmer.
04:35 You can peek every now and again, give it a stir,
04:36 but truly this should be good to sit.
04:38 And while we do that, we're gonna make the meatballs.
04:40 You could dedicate an entire video
04:42 to just making meatballs and I have,
04:45 but I'm gonna just talk to you
04:47 about like one of the best, easiest hacks to making
04:50 really tender, delicious Italian style meatballs.
04:52 And that is something called a panade.
04:55 A panade is a mixture of fresh bread
04:57 torn into little pieces and milk.
04:59 And we add this to things like meatballs
05:01 because proteins, when they cook, they constrict
05:04 and they kind of wring out their moisture
05:06 like a towel as you cook them.
05:08 But starch, on the other hand,
05:09 as you know, if you overcook pasta or rice,
05:11 will retain that moisture and kind of absorb it all up.
05:14 So we add a little bit of starch in the form of bread
05:18 to kind of hang on to all those juices
05:20 that the beef is gonna maybe leach out
05:22 while we make these meatballs.
05:23 It's really effective.
05:24 It makes that like fork tender Italian style meatball
05:28 that's like almost like pillowy light on the inside.
05:30 That is because of this.
05:31 This panade also has an egg mixed into it.
05:33 So we're gonna go into a medium bowl
05:35 with our milk and a large egg.
05:39 Give that a good whisk.
05:40 And then we're gonna tear our bread
05:41 into pieces right into the bowl.
05:43 And we're also gonna go in with some spices
05:46 and things that are gonna make it delicious.
05:47 Parm that's been grated, some parsley,
05:50 garlic powder, and onion powder.
05:52 And then you're just gonna season it up
05:54 with some salt and pepper.
05:55 Once that's all combined,
05:57 we're gonna fold in our ground meat.
05:59 And you could use a spatula or like a wooden spoon,
06:02 but I would just go in with your little hands.
06:04 It's the best tool for the job.
06:05 Then you're gonna pick up
06:06 like a heaping two tablespoon amount of meat,
06:08 mix it up in your hand,
06:09 place it on a sheet or a plate.
06:11 There should be about nine by the end of the process.
06:13 Once you have those nine meatballs,
06:15 they're not going right into the sauce.
06:17 They will overcook if they cook for that long.
06:19 So we're gonna cover them with plastic wrap
06:21 and we are going to get them into our fridge to rest.
06:26 And then we will add them
06:28 after the two hours have elapsed.
06:30 All right, all right.
06:31 This has been going for two hours.
06:34 It has been smelling so incredible in here.
06:37 It is really reduced and you can really see like,
06:40 despite the fact that we put that much liquid in here,
06:42 it's really cooked down nicely.
06:44 It smells incredible.
06:45 The spare ribs look like they're starting
06:47 to get super duper tender.
06:48 So let's do our last step,
06:51 which is to put our meatballs down
06:52 for their little sauce nap.
06:53 We're gonna nestle them in there
06:55 and we're just gonna cook them in that sauce
06:57 for about 30 minutes until they're just cooked through.
07:01 And we want them amply tender.
07:03 If they're starting to like fall apart a little bit,
07:05 I'd prefer that than them being raw or like kind of tough.
07:08 So let them cook.
07:09 Then at the end, you can season with a bit of salt
07:10 if you think it needs it.
07:12 It honestly may have picked up a lot of sodium
07:14 from the sausage, from the meatballs, whatever.
07:16 So truly just use your discretion.
07:18 Then for serving it, you can serve it any number of ways.
07:20 You could serve it literally by itself.
07:22 You could serve it over mashed potatoes.
07:23 You could serve it over polenta.
07:25 That would be unbelievable.
07:26 It's one of those things that really,
07:28 it's just like the sauce is the star
07:30 and anything else should just be supporting it.
07:32 I'll maybe dress it up with a little parm,
07:34 a little fresh basil,
07:37 with a little bit of baby rigatoni.
07:39 It's gonna be delicious.
07:40 I barely seasoned that.
07:42 I added like a little bit of salt,
07:44 but because it's taken on all the flavor from the sausage,
07:47 from the spare ribs, from the meatballs, from the basil,
07:50 it's truly basically done as is.
07:53 That's how flavorful this gets as it cooks down.
07:55 It's a complex sauce.
07:57 There's acid, there's umami,
07:59 and those meatballs are so incredible.
08:01 They may have even started to disintegrate into the sauce,
08:03 but who cares?
08:04 It kind of becomes the sauce.
08:06 It's foods that's warming from the inside out.
08:09 There's a reason why a lot of families
08:11 make a sauce like this almost every single weekend.
08:13 This took time, it took care, it took love.
08:15 So for more weekend cooking projects just like this one,
08:19 stick around here on delish.com.
08:21 (upbeat music)
08:23 (upbeat music)