Is there anything better than an old family recipe for a delicious Italian dinner? In this video, Nicole shares her favorite family recipe for making Italian Sunday sauce and homemade tender meatballs. Made over the course of the day (preferably a Sunday), this rich dish combines the delicate Italian meatballs and sweetened tomato sauce with fresh herbs like oregano and basil. This savory meal tastes divine and will feed everyone at the table or the next potluck. To hear Nicole explain the origins of her Sunday Sauce recipe and how to make it, watch the video.
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00:00 Being a part of an Italian family,
00:01 sundae sauce is the thing,
00:03 and you better know how to make it.
00:04 And for some crazy reason,
00:05 I'm sharing with you my recipe for Italian sundae sauce,
00:08 including the meatballs.
00:10 The thing with sundae sauce is that everyone's is different,
00:12 yet everyone's is the same,
00:14 because it's like we make it all
00:15 with the same type of ingredients,
00:17 but no two pots are the same.
00:19 We call it succa in my family,
00:21 so the smell of sundae is a pot of succa.
00:24 My mom used to start it first thing in the morning.
00:26 We'd go to church, come back,
00:27 and the whole house is like smelling up the sauce.
00:30 My ultimate goal is to make mine taste like my grandmother's,
00:35 but I can't do it.
00:36 My brother comes close, but he won't share his secret.
00:38 The difference between an Italian sundae sauce
00:41 and just a marinara is the long cook time
00:44 and the super rich flavor,
00:45 and that comes from meat.
00:47 You've gotta start with the meat.
00:48 I'm starting with neck bones.
00:52 This is like a true delicacy for like barely any dollars.
00:56 And when I'm going all out,
00:57 I of course include the Italian sausage.
01:00 Look at my grandfather, isn't he cute?
01:02 The sad thing is,
01:03 if you live outside the Birmingham, Alabama area,
01:05 you can't get this, but one day.
01:07 Fun fact, in addition to neck bones,
01:09 we used to also put pigtails in there.
01:11 When this simmers all day in the sauce,
01:14 mm, mm, we're gonna season 'em up
01:17 with some salt and pepper,
01:18 and then just brown them up in a little olive oil.
01:19 Just any olive oil will do.
01:22 We don't have to get snobby with it.
01:23 I mean, we're cooking neck bones.
01:25 You wanna get a good crust on these for flavor.
01:28 The only difference between me doing this right now
01:30 and on a Sunday at my house is that I'm not in my pajamas.
01:34 That's really the way I like to cook.
01:36 It's not the prettiest thing, but don't be scared.
01:39 You want that brown color, that's flavor,
01:42 but the meat is gonna end up being sweet in the end.
01:45 They definitely don't have to be cooked through,
01:46 just develop some color.
01:48 If you don't have neck bones
01:51 or can't find 'em at your grocery store,
01:52 a good substitute would be country-style ribs.
01:56 So there's our first layer of flavor.
01:58 In the same pot, you don't have to do anything else.
02:00 We're just gonna go in and brown our sausage.
02:01 I like it about the same size as a meatball
02:04 so that when you're making your plate at the end,
02:06 you get a little sausage, a little meatball,
02:07 and because it's the way my mom did it.
02:09 - Wow.
02:13 - It's my first day.
02:14 Okay, you wanna see how this looks like?
02:16 Plus, when you cut it like this, it stretches further.
02:22 I really started becoming known for the sauce in college.
02:25 I lived in the dorm and my brother had a house
02:28 and he had three roommates, and on Sundays,
02:30 I would go over there and make the sauce for them
02:33 while I did my laundry at their house,
02:34 and they were always appreciative.
02:36 I guess I felt like I had to pay 'em for the laundry.
02:38 Getting a little concerned
02:40 that I did not choose a big enough pot.
02:42 We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
02:44 All right, I'm gonna pull out the sausages.
02:46 They're definitely not cooked through.
02:49 That's okay.
02:51 We've got the drippings from the pork and the sausage
02:53 along with that olive oil.
02:55 Two handfuls of onions, a handful of garlic.
02:58 Wish I would've brought my wooden spoon to show you,
03:00 but a true Italian has a wooden spoon
03:02 that they use for their sauce,
03:04 and you'll notice that one side
03:05 is always a little more worn from all the stirring.
03:08 This is gonna become my special spoon.
03:10 Okay, this step is crucial.
03:12 You wanna cook these onions until they are super soft.
03:17 So at this point, I like to add in a little bit of the salt
03:20 to help soften 'em, but don't rush this step.
03:22 This step might take 10 minutes.
03:24 Turn on your music and get your glass of wine.
03:26 Growing up, my mom just used tomato paste and water.
03:30 As I grew up a little bit, I like a little more texture.
03:33 So I'm gonna use a combination of paste,
03:36 and then I'm gonna do a combination
03:37 of crushed tomatoes and tomato puree.
03:39 Sometimes I don't do this,
03:41 but when I was trying to create a recipe for you,
03:44 I felt like I need something consistent.
03:46 So this can be that.
03:48 What do you use in your Sunday gravy?
03:50 P.S., some people call it gravy.
03:52 What do you call it?
03:54 Our onions, this is what you want right here.
03:56 You can see they have fully transformed
03:58 into this soft, melty onion situation.
04:01 You always wanna add your tomato paste
04:04 in with the olive oil and onions,
04:06 and kinda cook it for a second.
04:08 You know, it just releases that tomato flavor
04:11 that's been trapped in a can for a while.
04:13 Dried herbs have a time and a place,
04:15 and I think this is the time and the place.
04:17 I like just the flavor of basil in there.
04:20 It's what my grandmother uses.
04:21 She says put a lot of sweet basil in there.
04:23 It is not the same flavor as fresh basil.
04:25 I will add that at the end.
04:27 And then just a little bit of oregano.
04:29 I don't love Italian seasoning blend,
04:31 but if you do, use that.
04:32 You smell it?
04:34 - Oh yeah.
04:35 - In goes the rest of the tomato.
04:37 All right, now I'm gonna rinse these out
04:38 for a little liquid gold.
04:40 This goes right back into the sauce,
04:41 and we don't wanna waste anything.
04:44 That's good, you want it like slightly thinner
04:46 than what you expect it to be at the end,
04:48 because it cooks all day.
04:49 It's gonna like reduce a little bit
04:51 and thicken a little bit.
04:52 All right, I can tell you right now,
04:54 I'm gonna need a bigger pot.
04:55 Before I do, I'll season it up
04:57 with the rest of our seasonings.
04:58 So in goes a bay leaf.
05:00 My brother doesn't like the sugar,
05:01 but his is the one that tastes closer to my grandmother's,
05:04 and she is a diehard sugar adder.
05:07 I meet them somewhere in the middle.
05:08 About a tablespoon.
05:09 And then a little bit of salt and pepper.
05:12 We can totally adjust this at the end.
05:14 So I like to give it a first taste.
05:17 But you just gotta be careful,
05:18 'cause some of your tomato products
05:19 could contain some salt, so you just take it slow.
05:23 Now we talkin'.
05:24 Sometimes you just need a bigger pot.
05:26 In go our meats.
05:27 I'm just gonna pour it all in,
05:28 because I want any juices that have accumulated
05:30 to go in there as well.
05:32 Smellin' like Sunday.
05:34 We're gonna let this go all day.
05:35 It's called Sunday sauce.
05:37 It takes the whole day.
05:38 You'll know when it's ready
05:39 when that pork is like fallin' off of the neck bone,
05:42 or when it easily can be picked off with a fork.
05:45 And now, let's make the meatballs.
05:47 What makes a good meatball is that
05:50 it is of course super flavorful,
05:52 but then it is also tender.
05:54 You know, my mom could not get a good tender meatball
05:58 until I taught her.
06:00 So this just starts out with a little bit
06:02 of garlic and onion,
06:04 and you want these to be like really tiny.
06:07 We don't want chunks of onion or garlic in a meatball.
06:10 But let me tell you what not to do.
06:11 Don't be buying any frozen meatballs, okay?
06:14 It is not the same.
06:16 The only time a frozen meatball is acceptable
06:18 is when it's your frozen meatball that you made beforehand.
06:21 Chopping garlic's probably one of my least favorite
06:23 activities in the kitchen.
06:25 It's 'cause of this.
06:26 It just sticks to your hands.
06:27 It drives me crazy.
06:28 It's like peelin' butternut squash.
06:29 Okay, so a trick to getting your meatballs
06:32 to stay nice and tender is not to overwork the meat.
06:35 So what I like to do is put all of my ingredients
06:37 into the bowl first, get all those mixed up,
06:39 and then add your meat last,
06:40 so that you don't have to mix it all together later
06:43 once the meat is added.
06:44 All right, then my herbs.
06:45 I'm going in with some chopped parsley and basil.
06:48 Don't have to worry about precise knife skills here.
06:51 I just love the fresh herbs in a meatball.
06:55 Next, go in with the egg.
06:56 So for every pound of meat, I usually do an egg.
06:59 So I'm gonna do two eggs,
07:00 but then I'll always add an extra egg yolk.
07:02 I don't know why, just adds to the richness of it.
07:05 The egg is crucial because it's what holds
07:08 the meatball together in combination
07:10 with the breadcrumb.
07:11 I do a little half and half.
07:13 Now there is a little bit of Parmesan cheese
07:14 in the Italian seasoned breadcrumbs,
07:17 but you gotta have more, you know, about that much.
07:19 Well, about two of those.
07:22 And then I like to mix that together first.
07:24 Something like that is what you're going for.
07:28 I'm just doing an Italian style breadcrumbs
07:30 'cause that's what, I don't know, I just like it,
07:32 even though it's not homemade.
07:33 And I want them to kind of soak and absorb some of this
07:36 before I mix in the meat.
07:37 So I just kind of sprinkle the breadcrumbs
07:39 until it like covers the surface of that.
07:42 Give that a mix.
07:43 And now we add our meat.
07:45 Ground round has to me the perfect amount of fat
07:48 for a meatball.
07:49 So I'm going in with, oops, some ground round
07:52 and also about half the amount of ground Italian sausage.
07:57 All right, now this is when I like to season
08:00 with salt and pepper because I feel like the seasoning
08:02 is more evenly distributed.
08:04 The comments come when you mix raw meat
08:06 with your rings on.
08:08 Let me avoid that.
08:09 Sound on.
08:10 Now I know we don't wanna over mix,
08:13 but you do wanna mix enough
08:14 to where it's one uniform mixture.
08:15 You don't want chunks of filling and meat.
08:19 All right, the easiest way to roll a meatball
08:21 is with wet hands.
08:22 Grandmother taught me that.
08:23 And this is one of like the first jobs you get
08:26 as a kid making this with your parents
08:28 is you get to roll the meatballs.
08:29 So my grandmother used to always put
08:31 like a little bowl of water.
08:32 You just kind of dip your hands in and keep working.
08:35 To me, the perfect meatball is like the size of a golf ball.
08:38 See, perfect golf ball size.
08:40 You can see that the ingredients are evenly dispersed
08:43 throughout the meatball.
08:44 You don't see any big chunks of onion.
08:46 - How many meatballs do you think you've rolled out?
08:48 - 10,000.
08:49 I guess I need to calculate that per year I've been alive.
08:52 You know, like divide it by 25.
08:54 See how when your hands are damp,
08:55 it just like rolls so easy.
08:57 One recipe's worth of meatballs per pot of sauce is plenty.
09:02 If you know you're not gonna eat a ton of meatballs
09:05 or you're trying to make a smaller batch,
09:07 get it to this point.
09:08 Go ahead and bake them off and then freeze them.
09:09 That way they're ready for you
09:11 anytime you wanna just pop 'em in a pot of sauce.
09:14 A few years ago as we got older, we were like,
09:15 remember we all used to get together on Sundays
09:17 and have pasta?
09:18 We should do that.
09:19 So now we do it, we try to do it like once a month.
09:21 And we call it suka Sundays.
09:23 It may happen at the lake, it may happen at the beach.
09:26 We just take turns at people's houses,
09:27 but here's what it looks like.
09:29 Before you add 'em to your sauce,
09:30 you don't want them to fall apart,
09:31 so you can't add 'em like this.
09:33 So I like to bake them off 375 degrees
09:36 'til it gets nice and browned throughout.
09:39 Usually takes about 15 minutes.
09:40 Smell delish.
09:42 They go straight from the oven into the sauce.
09:45 If only I had my pajamas on and my music playing.
09:47 - What would you be listening to?
09:48 - Probably a little Leon Bridges.
09:50 Something kinda jazzy.
09:52 But if it was suka Sunday,
09:53 we'd be playing like mafia music.
09:55 Stir it in there, let it soak.
09:59 All your work is done, the payoff is gonna be amazing.
10:02 So take the time, soak up your Sunday, enjoy your life.
10:05 What was I gonna say?
10:06 (laughing)
10:07 Let this go as long as you can, but at least a few hours.
10:11 And then I'll see you back to serve it up.
10:13 Just checking in.
10:17 Little refill and a little taste test.
10:19 Now growing up, we had the loaf of bread on the counter,
10:23 but it was like the cheap white bread.
10:25 And you would come kinda taste it throughout the day.
10:27 So you never really ate lunch,
10:28 but you'll see in the pot how it goes
10:30 from like this amount to this amount
10:32 because people have been eating the sauce all day.
10:35 Then I started getting angry, so I made that go away.
10:37 But there's just something about this.
10:39 It's like chips and dip.
10:40 Mm, it's gonna be good, y'all.
10:44 This final step is purely optional.
10:50 I don't always do this,
10:51 but I do if I have fresh herbs on hand.
10:53 I like to finish it off with a little chopped parsley
10:55 and fresh basil.
10:57 It just kinda has that finishing touch.
11:00 Does it smell like Sunday to you?
11:03 The answer's yes.
11:04 All right, come look at this.
11:05 You can see how it has reduced.
11:08 The color has deepened.
11:09 It's simmering.
11:10 Oh, ho, ho, if you could smell it.
11:13 In goes my little freshness.
11:16 Let's check those neck bones.
11:18 Oh yeah, look, you can already see.
11:20 See how tender that is?
11:21 You can serve this up with whatever pasta you like.
11:26 I'm going just old school, classic spaghetti.
11:29 I like to drain my pasta and then toss it
11:32 with a little bit of sauce before we plate it up.
11:34 It keeps it from sticking.
11:35 You don't need oil.
11:37 If you put oil on your pasta, it just makes it slip off.
11:41 You know, we make big portions
11:42 'cause we've been starving all day.
11:44 Down with a little sauce first like that,
11:46 and then you gotta get a little bit of everything.
11:49 Cheese it up like my dad likes it.
11:51 He likes a little pasta with his cheese.
11:53 Yum.
11:54 A little sprinkle of fresh basil 'cause we fancy.
11:57 Also, it's gotta be piping hot like this.
11:59 (chewing)
12:01 It's like a, I mean, that's what it is.
12:08 It's like a warm hug from your Italian grandmother.
12:10 You know what I mean?
12:11 It's just so much flavor.
12:12 It's so comforting.
12:13 You can eat so much of it.
12:15 Let me taste the meatball.
12:17 What's not to love?
12:22 It only gets better with age.
12:23 If you've got more hours, let that color deepen even more.
12:27 If I had to pick my last meal on Earth, this would be it.
12:31 Don't forget the napkins.
12:35 Are you ready?
12:41 Are you rolling?
12:42 This next step.
12:48 you