How to Make the Easiest Drop Meatballs

[Music] for years we've told you that great tasting meatballs always start with browning it might be on the stovetop or in the oven but a recent trip to south philly had us rethinking everything we knew about meatballs and speaking of meatballs ashley's here she's going to tell us what we found what did we find well we found that you can make dropped meatballs and get just as good of a result as if you made them the traditional way the browning way so no browning no browning now we're going to use just ground beef for this meatball we're going to start by making what's called a panot now as you know panads are used for things like meatballs or for meatloaf and it's when you want to make sure something stays tender during cooking and retain its shape so usually we use fresh bread crumbs or panko bread crumbs but today we're going to be using saltines and the main reason for that is because we found that there was less moisture in the saltines and it made the meatballs less gummy okay so we don't want gummy we don't want soggy but we also don't want fragile exactly so this is going to help with that yes this is 22 square saltines so i'm going to crush the saltines with this rolling pin i am going to get them nice and fine i don't want to get them too coarse because i don't know about you but i don't want to eat a meatball with a big chunk of saltine in the center of it all right this will yield about a cup and i'm just going to transfer these finely crushed saltines to this bowl and then for the milk portion this is one cup of whole milk i'm just gonna add this in here and then i'm gonna let them sit for about five minutes until the saltines have had a chance to soften all right so using this fork i'm just going to mash it all in until a nice smooth paste forms that looks good enough all right and now the meat so this is two pounds of 85 ground beef and then we have two ounces of grated parmesan cheese one teaspoon of dried oregano one teaspoon of garlic powder one teaspoon of salt and a half a teaspoon of pepper using my hands and get in there you don't want to work it too much because if you do naturally the ground beef it will get tough so just until everything is nice and thoroughly combined we're going to need 24 scant quarter cup meatballs i like to do my first meatball being precise and using the actual measuring cup because that way i can gauge what the rest of the meatballs need to look like in regards to socks so now just using my hands again not handling it too much we're going to do 24 total so normally we add egg to meatballs when we need it to provide structure we're going to be dropping them into the sauce we didn't need that structure because the hot sauce is going to set it yes so we're going to finish up these meatballs put them in the refrigerator and they can be held for up to 24 hours in advance which is a great make ahead option but if you are gonna store them in the fridge just be sure to put some plastic wrap on top [Music] all right so the meatballs are in the fridge now it's time to focus on the tomato sauce this is 10 cloves of garlic and today i'm just going to be smashing the whole peeled cloves of garlic just like so you turn your knife to the side and boom you're just cracking it exactly yep i'm going to do this to all 10. that's a lot of garlic but the reason that this works in this recipe is because ashley did not mince the garlic instead she's leaving the cloves whole every time you cut through garlic or really any member of the allium family like onions you're releasing flavor compounds so the less you cut it the less you slice and dice and mince it the less of that strong flavor you're going to get so this is going to give a buttery rich developed but balanced garlic flavor so now i have a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil i have the 10 smashed peeled garlic cloves and i'm just going to set this over low heat we want the two things to come up to temperature at the same time that way the garlic won't burn or scorch which is the worst way to ruin your sauce and you can't cover it up that's exactly right so i'm going to cook this for 10 minutes and i'm going to go in there with some tongs every so often and just make sure the garlic is getting nice and golden brown on both sides sounds good let's get a look at the garlic smells so good i know so here is a half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes i'm gonna keep it on low heat and just add that in there and just cook them for about 30 seconds until you start to smell that crushed red pepper smell and it really turns a nice beautiful burnt orange as well all right now let's get going with the tomatoes here we have two 28 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes one teaspoon of salt okay now i'm gonna add in the meatballs that have been in the refrigerator the brownless meatballs the brownless meatballs i'm not dropping them i am placing them i'm gonna bring these up to a simmer then i'm going to cover the pot bring it on over to the oven which has been preheating at 400 degrees and i'm going to cook them covered for 40 minutes until the meatballs are [Music] tender smells heavenly oh wow now that's what i'm talking about it's vesuvius it is vesuvius it smells so good look at that that's a whole meatball that is it's not a broken up piece of a meatball just simmering in the sauce yeah in the oven is it in the oven yeah so we have the ambient heat of the oven and it cooked together at the same rate so i am going to leave those uncovered to cool while we make some pasta now here i have four quarts of water that i brought up to a boil i'm gonna add a tablespoon of salt mix it up a little bit there and then we have a pound of pasta i'm just gonna go in there with some tongs loosen everybody up a little bit so now we're gonna cook this for about eight minutes until the pasta is al dente sounds good all right so i am going to just moisten the pasta with some of the tomato sauce just a couple spoonfuls and a lot of people put olive oil on the pasta which always cracks me up because then that means that the sauce isn't going to stick to your pasta but i do like to moisten it with the sauce and that will help to ensure that it doesn't stick together yeah it doesn't take a lot of sauce to do that all right i'm going to add three tablespoons of chopped basil to our sauce here good idea to add it at the last minute so you retain that basil freshness all right and then i'm just going to gently stir the basil in being sure not to disrupt those balls that we worked so hard to keep intact all right it's dinner time and i have to say i love your proportions here thank you it's pasta with sauce and meatballs exactly right that garlic is peeking out in there and it's actually broken down really nicely two meatballs sound okay yes yes whatever gets the plate to me faster would you like any cheese sure all right this recipe is great for so many reasons but one of them is because it makes enough for two pounds of pasta so i only made one pound of pasta today so that means i get to hang on to the rest of the sauce freeze it save it for later i love it when you build in leftovers i know great idea all right i'm going to have the pasta in a minute but for now oh these are super tender mm-hmm let me have this watering these are unbelievable yeah great flavor inside lots of beefy flavor inside but i really thought that these were going to just kind of solidify but they are incredibly tender this is so bright and fresh it still tastes very developed because the meatballs were cooked in the sauce so the sauce took on some of that beefy flavor as well perfection thank you thank you so for super tender meatballs crush saltine crackers and then mash them with milk to make a panod mix in ground beef parmesan spices and seasonings divide and roll into 24 meatballs and chill cook smashed garlic cloves in olive oil add crushed tomatoes and then nestle in those meatballs cook them in the oven until tender stir in basil and serve with spaghetti so from cook's country the easiest drop meatballs so tender thanks for watching cook's country from america's test kitchen so what'd you think leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or just say hi now you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later alligator [Laughter]

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 114,939

Rating: 4.9214845 out of 5

Keywords: italian food, meatballs, how to make meatballs, cooks country, cooks illustrated, americas test kitchen

Id: P4YBNMkezYM

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020