Polpette or Italian meatballs is a staple of Italian home cooking. On Sunday, almost in every home around Italy you'll hear a sizzling sound of juicy meatballs cooking in a rich tomato sauce or sugo di pomodoro.

Polpette in a large pot with tomato sauce.

Of course, there are numerous regional variations to the recipe, not to mention that every family claim their polpette to be the best!

As you make them a few dozens of times you'll develop a sense of making perfect meatballs even without following the recipe. Until that time, use my measurements and method that make juicy, tender and flavorful meatballs every single time!

Table Of Contents

What are Polpette?
Italian Polpette: What's So Special?
Ingredients
Variations & Add-Ons
Top Tips - Don't Miss!
How To Make Polpette - Step By Step With Pictures
Other Ways To Cook & Serve Polpette
What to serve with meatballs?
More Sunday Dinner Recipe
Full Recipe

What are Polpette?

Polpette is an Italian word that is used to name bite size, round-shaped nuggets that can be made of different ingredients.

For example: polpette made of meat - polpette di carne, polpette made of ricotta - polpette di ricotta, polpette made of vegetables - polpette di verdura. In this last case you would add main vegetable name to the frase "polpette di [vegetable name]". For example: polpette di zucchine, polpette di melanzane (eggplant meatballs) and so on.

Quite often, Italians also make polpette to use left-over foods such as risotto, boiled meat or chicken breast and even stale bread (polpette di pane).

But unless you specify the kind kind of "polpetta", by default everyone thinks of polpette as these classic Italian Meatballs in tomato sauce.

By the way, polpette is plural of polpetta.

Then there's also a polpettone - a giant meatballs which is nothing else than a meatloaf and polpettine - teeny tiny meatballs.

Italian Polpette: What's So Special?

Extra juicy and flavorful.
Perfect for meal prep. Freeze raw and cook directly from frozen!
Minimal hands-on work and with few all genuine ingredients.
Everything cooks in one pot.
Make at least 2 meals out of one! Even though Italians don't serve pasta and polpette together aka spaghetti and meatballs, when you make polpette you still can (read MUST!) use the sauce to make delicious pasta in rich tomato sauce that has absorbed all flavors of the meatballs.

Ingredients

For meatballs:
- Ground meat - a mix of ground beef and pork is one of the secrets for juicy and flavorful polpette.
- Stale bread - crust removed. You can also use fresh or semi-stale bread. Fresh bread doesn't require any soaking, instead add a few tablespoons of milk or water to the polpette mix.
- Parmesan cheese - Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano. You can also use Pecorino or what I like to do is use a mix of Parmsan and Pecorino.
- Parsley - fresh or frozen finely chopped.
- Egg, salt, pepper.
For the sauce:
- Tomato passata - or peeled and pureed canned tomatoes.
- Shallot - or onion if you prefer.
- Garlic - whole cloves, crushed with a flat knife to give subtle flavor that's not overpowering.
- Extra virgin olive oil.
- Basil or oregano.

Polpette in tomato sauce garnished with parsley.

Variations & Add-Ons

Raisins and pine nuts - Neapolitan style meatballs or polpette napoletane add a few tablespoons of raising and pine nuts to the classic polpette mix. This gives them their signature light sweetness and extra flavor. Absolutely give them a try!
Mortadella - this is a typical extra ingredient used in Emilia-Romagna. Afew slices of finely chopped or minced mortadella added to the meat mix gives an incredible extra flavor and juiciness to the meatballs.
Spinach - cooked chopped spinach adds juiciness and a little extra nutrients to classic polpette. You might need to add an extra egg and a sprinkle of breadcrumbs to help the mix bind together.
'Nduja - addition of this spicy spredable sausage is typical in Calabria region. If you like polpette a notch spicy and have 'nduja handy definitely give it a try.

Top Tips - Don't Miss!

Meatball size. Medium size polpette are probably the best. If you want you can make them slightly large or slightly smaller. As long as they’re of the same size in the batch, which helps meatballs to cook evenly, you're off to a good start. I don't recommend making them tiny, because they might not hold their shape in cooking.
Fried or Baked? Classic Italian recipe wants polpette to be deep fried first and then cooked in the sauce. You can also bake them in the oven or in the air-fryer for 15 minutes at 375F (180C) before simmering in the sauce. However my Sardinian mother-in-law does none of the above. She arranges them raw in a hot summering sauce and lets them gently cook to perfection. They turn out delicious and you will never know the difference.
Tomato sauce. Polpette should be almost completely submersed in tomato sauce for even cooking with minimal tossing. Yes, you'll have leftovers. And that's the best part! Use them to season pasta the next day.

How To Make Polpette - Step By Step With Pictures

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Squeezing soaked bread from excess water.

In a bowl add stale bread and cover it with water. Let soak until soft then squeeze well with your hands to remove the liquid.
NOTE: you can substitute water with milk but since most of it will be removed I prefer to not let the milk go to waste.

All ingredients for polpette added in a bowl.

In another bowl add ground meat, soaked and squeezed bread, Parmesan cheese, egg, finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Mix well and set aside.

Olive oil, garlic, shallot and tomato passata in a casserole.

In a large casserole or a deep pan large enough to fit both meatballs and the sauce add a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Add finely chopped shallot and garlic cloves crushed with a flat knife.

Let simmer on low heat until garlic becomes fragrant. Remove the garlic and add tomato passata, basil and a few pinches of salt. Rinse the can with a little of water add it to the pot as well. Let simmer on low heat while you're rolling the meatballs.

Dividing polpette mix into squares using a bench scraper.

While tomato sauce is simmering form the meatballs. You can use an ice-cream scoop or spread the meatballs mix flat on a parchment paper on a baking dish as I show in the picture, divide into equal squares.

This way it's super easy to roll each square into a ball. Your polpette are of the same size, look amazing cook evenly.

Arrange polpette in a simmering tomato sauce.

Polpette simmering in a sauce with a lid slightly open.

Cover with a lid and let cook for about 20-30 minutes on low simmer. Occasionally give a gentle toss to make sure meatballs don't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Other Ways To Cook & Serve Polpette

Polpette in tomato sauce is not the only way how you can cook and serve them. Another delicious, but little-known way to cook polpette is using a classic soffritto.

Make sure to chop vegetables finely and slightly cook them in olive oil. Then add raw meatballs and roast them for a few minutes until they've changed color. After that add some water and cover with a lid. Bring to simmer and cook on low heat for 15-20 minutes.

What to serve with meatballs?

In English-speaking world Spaghetti and meatballs is the most classic version.

But it's not how Italians serve it.

You might be surprised that Italians NEVER serve meatballs with pasta (probably excluding few little known regional recipes from the South).

Instead, they cook and serve pasta (spaghetti including, but most commonly penne pasta) with rich meatballs sauce. And THEN, they serve meatballs as "secondo" or main course.

Meatballs are covered in tomato sauce, topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and some chopped parsley.

Italian meatballs in tomato sauce in a white pot.

More Sunday Dinner Recipe

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Full Recipe