Meatballs in tomato sauce is often thought of as an involved Sunday dinner kind of a dish. However, you can pull off a weeknight meal that tastes like it’s been simmering for hours by tweaking the cooking method and adding a few flavor-packed ingredients.
Most meatball recipes call for a two step-cooking process: brown the meatballs, either by frying or baking, and then slowly simmer them in a long-cooked tomato sauce. But here’s the thing — you don’t actually need that browning step. Yes, it does build in an additional layer of flavor, but you can make up for that with your mix-ins. If you start with a high-quality marinara sauce, such as Rao’s, it doesn’t need any additional cooking before the meatballs are added, so you’ll only need to allow about 15 minutes of total cooking time.
For the meatballs themselves, I like to use ground lamb (freshly ground meat will yield a more tender meatball than vacuum-packed ground meat) paired with spicy garam masala, tangy feta cheese and fresh mint to complement the meat’s grassy, gamy flavor. I also incorporate each of those mix-ins to the sauce to tie the flavors together. The garam masala is added while the sauce simmers; the feta and mint are sprinkled on top right before serving.
You can also easily take these flavors in a different direction. Ground beef would pair well with Parmesan, fresh oregano and Italian seasoning; or stick with lamb and add ras el hanout, raisins and cilantro. Whatever ingredients you choose for the dish, be sure to serve with plenty of bread for scooping up all of the sauce.
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