Every member of my mother’s family, who originated in Sicily, creates their own version; the most current version came from Brooklyn. They freeze quite well if there are any leftovers. MANGIA! Serve with a good piece of crusty Italian bread and a glass of red wine.
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 4 hrs 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 4 hrs 55 mins |
| Servings: | 24 |
| Yield: | 24 servings |
Ingredients
- 3 slices white bread, torn into pieces
- ¼ cup milk or water
- 1 ½ pounds ground beef
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup grated Romano cheese
- 1 pinch dried parsley
- ¾ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 onion, chopped
- 6 cloves garlic, chopped
- 12 (3.5 ounce) links sweet Italian sausage
- 1 ½ pounds cubed beef brisket
- ½ pound pork neck bones
- 4 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
- 3 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
- ½ cup red wine
- 4 bay leaves
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3 (16 ounce) packages dry pasta
Instructions
- To make the meatballs, combine bread and milk or water in a medium bowl. Mix in ground beef, eggs, Romano cheese, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Form golf ball-sized meatballs; place into freezer to firm up.
- To make sauce, heat olive oil in a large pot on medium heat; stir in onion. Cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and 1 sausage link; cook about 3 minutes more.
- Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat, brown beef chunks and pork neck bones; set aside.
- When onions and garlic are done, turn heat down to low. Add tomato paste and cook for a few minutes. Stir in the browned beef and pork, crushed tomatoes, wine, bay leaves, cinnamon, parsley, basil, and salt and pepper. Bring sauce to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low and cook for 3 to 4 hours.
- Once you add the meatballs, let sauce simmer for 1 hour. When sauce is nearly ready, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain. Cover pasta with sauce and meatballs and serve immediately.
- Use your favorite meat and Italian red wine for this sauce and serve with your favorite pasta. This also is a great pizza sauce if you leave out about half of the meat.
- Remove pork neck bones before serving. If you freeze the sauce, let it thaw and add 1 8-ounce can of tomato sauce to thin it slightly, if needed.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 669 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 59 g |
| Cholesterol | 105 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Protein | 31 g |
| Saturated Fat | 13 g |
| Sodium | 922 mg |
| Sugars | 6 g |
| Fat | 34 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I too found the directions somewhat ambiguious and misleading, but stil ended up with a tasty three-meat sauce. Specifically, the recipe only ever addresses using one Italian sausage link in step 2. Later, in step 4 it says to add in browned beef and pork, but does not specify if this is the Italian sausage or pork neck bones…and brisket or meatballs. Remainder of Italian sausage was never directed to be browned. Somewhat confusing. As a meat lover, I solved the dilemma by just throwing all the meat in. Seemed to work out well and yielded a flavorful and sweet three-meat sauce. I prefer my red sauces a little spicy, so I added red pepper flakes to the mix as well. Recipe yield is substantial, and once simmering, I found it overflowing my largest pan with cover. Suggest you use a large pot or cut recipes in half if you aren’t feeding a large crowd. Otherwise plan to freeze and/or store leftovers.
The recipe is much like the one that has been passed down in my family for more than 200 years… Although my ancestors didn’t have the advantage of having tomatoes and paste come in cans! Its the best gravy!!!
Wow! This was my first time making red gravy and it is worth the time and effort. The long cook time does wonders to soften the meat and pulls together all the ingredients to create a fabulous flavor. The sausage was as soft as butter and the gravy took on a beautiful deep red color with a very smooth consistency. I was heavy handed with the cinnamon, basil and parsley but did not find any one stand out in the end result. Since the recipe yield is huge I will freeze part of it. Only uncertainty I have is with the meatballs. I chopped the meat as the recipe suggested, instead of ground meat. The meatballs mostly fell apart while cooking in the last hour. I would prefer to keep the meatballs together so will grind the brisket for meatballs next time. Does chopped brisket mean ground brisket in this recipe?
I remove some of the sauce – 2 cups and 2 sausage and 2 meatballs and run them in the blender and add back to the pot to thicken the sauce. Remove the bones before serving. Any pork bones would be fine, but neck bones have good amount of marrow and work great. This is AUTHENTIC Sicilian. Nothing like Prego or Ragu!! Yummy!!!!!
Good gravy! Used ground chuck for the meatballs but did put the cubed brisket in. Only a dash of cinnamon is needed. I used serving size adjuster function for this recipe to 12 servings and it made a normal pot of sauce for a family of 5 for our spaghetti dinner. Neck bones are hard to find, but, the marrow leaching is a definite flavor and texture enhancer and does make a difference. I have tried it both ways. The butcher was able to provide me with some pork bones – either neck or not, I have found it didn’t matter as long as there were pork bones in the sauce. Great recipe!
This was a great deal of work but worth every second! My family loved it. I’ve always wanted to try making my own sauce and this was amazing!!
I’m going back to my own family recipe. Would never make this again.
For the last poster, go to the Recipe Buzz to ask questions on any cooking topic. The cooks are very willing to help!
So glad you posted this for all to appreciate! My great grandfather was from Sicily and my great grandmother was from Milan. This is so similar (to the T except for the meatballes) to how we have been raised to make sauce! Very authentic!!! It’s the long cooking time that’s the key to taking what we call the “green” flavor out of the sauce. Thank you again!
I haven’t made this sauce yet, but recognize most of the ingredients as similar to the sauce my Sicilian grandfather passed to my mom. For those of you thinking of trying this sauce, the pork neck bones are essential, as is the cheese in the meatballs. Can’t wait to make this version.
This is very similar to the sauce my dad use to make–wake up to the smell of garlic and onions frying-waiting all day for it to cook–yum. He would never add ground meat to his sauce and I would never either. It’s just not the same. The bones from the pork neck bones add a thickness to the sauce that you just don’t get any other way. LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!
Okay – overall this sauce came out great. I only used two onions because using four of them seemed like too much, but probably would’ve been fine had i used four. I also added some oregano and crushed red pepper to the sauce and put a little extra wine and also extra garlic. I doubled the chop meat and meatball ingredients because I like meatballs a little larger than golf balls as suggested – big fan of meatballs made with bread. I put the meatballs in right away (i had them chilling in the fridge for a few hours), then once all the ingredients were in the sauce i dropped them in – if they are a decent size they wont fall apart. I would definitely OMIT the cinnamon – it was very overpowering & my mother, who’s been making sauce for 50+ years could taste it right away… someone else told me the sausages tasted like cinnamon as well… p.s. as usual, the leftovers two days later tasted even better!
Wonderful sauce. A little labor intensive, but if you got the time then go for it. I added some red pepper flakes (pizza topping) to the sauce with about an hour left in the cook time. Gave it that little extra kick.
This had a very interesting taste to it. My husband didn’t like it, though. Although I found the flavor rather unique, it wasn’t really something I would make again. But I appreciate the recipe and trying something new.
I only cooked the meatballs which are excellent! Didn’t have any ingredients to make the sauce today but will definitely do so. The meatballs were so moist and the cheese added a great flavor to them.
great recipe thanks for sharing. Made this last night for company, she took some home. The recipe makes alot and it is time consuming but really worth it. unable to find pork neck bones but don’t really think it needed it. I added ground pork to my meatballs as that is how we like them. Next time I will not brown them and put them in raw just to cut down on the time. My husband has stomach issues with Italian sauces but he was okay with this one which is great as we love pasta. Again, thanks for a great recipe.
Even my picky, Italian husband loved this one! The kids say it’s a keeper too. Thanks!
Hardy, rich wonderful sauce, we added 1 1/2c extra Pinot noir, also because we were short on time we pressure cooked it for 40 min, then finished simmering when we added the meatballs for 30 in pressure cooker. One of the better sauces we’ve made from this site
i just used the sauce part of this recipe, but next time i will try the meatballs. i thought this was excellent! the addition of the neck bones gave it a really good flavor, and i thought the seasoning was quite tasty. i did happen to add some crushed red pepper which made it taste better. it was a tad bland before that addition. paired this with ‘the best meatballs’ and it was a good meal! i’ll be making this again 🙂
Wow. This was great. I scaled the recipe down to make sure we would like it first since I didn’t have all ing. on hand and I really wanted to try this recipe. I didn’t have brisket and I used lean ground beef in its place. Omitted the bay leaf because we don’t like, personal preference and added oregano. Used Italian Sausage I had on hand and took it out of casing. I did go out and get pork neck bones and I’m glad I did because I really think this is what adds to the flavor if using ground beef. This was really good and when I go shopping this weekend I’ll pick up the original to recipe and try. Then I’ll scale it up to freeze. Great flavor, thanks so much for the post.
This was excellent!!! This makes alot. Great for freezing. Would make again. Thanks for sharing.