The recipe for Grandma’s sauce was one that she brought from Italy. The finest sauce I have ever had is the spaghetti sauce made with pork neck bones and other unusual ingredients. The moment you take your first mouthful, the drawn-out effort will have been worth it.
| Prep Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 6 hrs 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 8 hrs |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 24 meatballs with sauce |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 whole garlic cloves, peeled
- 2 pig’s feet
- 1 pound pork neck bones
- 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
- 1 ½ cups water
- 2 (28 ounce) cans tomato purée
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 (16 ounce) loaf fresh Italian bread, torn into 2-inch pieces
- 1 cup water
- 6 eggs, beaten
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1 pound ground veal
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
Instructions
- Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in the bottom of a large saucepan, and fry garlic cloves until brown and fragrant, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove garlic cloves and set aside. Place pig’s feet and pork neck bones in the saucepan and fry, turning occasionally, until meat and bones have browned, about 15 minutes.
- Return garlic cloves to the saucepan, and stir in tomato paste and 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil and pour in tomato purée. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 3 hours, stirring from the bottom often to prevent burning, until pig’s feet are tender and mixture begins to thicken. Stir in sugar, pepper, and baking soda. Continue to simmer while you prepare meatballs.
- Soak torn bread with 1 cup of water in a bowl. Squeeze excess water out of bread and place bread in a large bowl with 6 beaten eggs, ground pork, ground veal, and ground beef. Mix thoroughly and form into 24 meatballs about 2 1/2-inches in diameter.
- Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, stir in minced garlic and chopped fresh basil, let them cook for about 1 minute, and then add meatballs. Season with salt and pepper to taste and fry them on all sides until brown, about 15 minutes, working in batches, if necessary.
- Place browned meatballs, along with oil, garlic, and basil from the skillet into sauce, stirring lightly to avoid breaking them. Add whole hard-boiled eggs and simmer for about 1 1/2 more hours, until meatballs are cooked, sauce is thick, and all flavors have blended.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 599 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 38 g |
| Cholesterol | 319 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Protein | 46 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Sodium | 1437 mg |
| Sugars | 12 g |
| Fat | 29 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Super tasty, simple ingredients and easy to make!!!
i grew up on sauce just like this! this seems like the identical recipe, except my father used chopped tomatoes instead of puree.
I don’t do the pigs feet but I do roast & freeze neck bones so I can have them on hand when I want to make sauce. If you are worried about little pieces of bone in your sauce tie them up in a piece of cheese cloth & discard when sauce is done. The roasted bones do add sooo much more to the flavor of the sauce. I also add a little [1/2 teaspoon sugar]] sugar to cut the acidity of the tomato sauce. We call this our sunday gravy.
Like all cooks we use recipes as a base. I added a couple of spices to the sauce and deleted the pigs feet. I did use the pork neck bones. I did not leave to whole bones in the sauce. I pulled off the meat added the meat back to the sauce and gave the bones to the dogs. For the meatballs instead of the bread soaked in water I used dry bread crumbs. I cooked it a day ahead of time so the flavors would have time meld together. I also could not find ground veal at the store so instead I used more pork (really italian saugage) for more added flavor and ground hamburger to make up for the pound of veal that i did not have. I was serving 10 people and use one pound of thin spaghetti. I had plenty of sauce and meatballs left over to freeze and kept some meatballs and sauce to make sub sandwiches with. My overall rating is I think it turned out nicely with my own cooking techinques and touch. I served with a salad and buttered bread.
Way way too bland and not enough water or broth . I agree woith the other cook I am Italian, my Grandparents came from Italy I use pork neckbones or pork ribs or rib ends and lots of herbs & spices like oregano, basil, thyme,a couple of bay leaves a good pinch of red pepper flakes (NOT cayenne pepper) I always sweeten my gravy with a good pinch of sugar sometimes I add a little fennel seed or anise seed and always use good quality plum or Italian style tomatoes
This is the best recipe for spaghetti sauce that I have found.. Excellent! What a flavor the pigs feet and pork neck bones give the sauce. Thanks so much for sharing it!
only made the meatballs and used jarred sauce to finish cooking them in. pretty good, make sure to squeeze as much water out of the bread as possible. I had to be very careful to keep the meatballs from falling apart.
The recipe was absolutely delicious. It was long process. I did everything in the morning then let it cook all day. For a real italian recipe this nailed it. I did make a few minor changes based on what I already had in my kitchen. Everyone in my family was very pleased.