Easy meatball sauce recipe. This Italian meatball sauce is easy, quick to make, and ready in 30 minutes. Packed full of flavor, and delicious, you will love this easy sauce for meatballs that can be served on pasta, rice, or any side of choice. Let me show you how to make the best.
Easy Meatball Sauce Recipe
This easy meatball sauce recipe is so good you will add it to the list of your favorite recipes. If you are looking for meatball sauce ideas, this is the best sauce for meatballs and once you try it you will be making it over and over again.
Cooking meatballs in sauce is easy, quick, and ready in 30 minutes and this tomato sauce for meatballs is bursting with flavors, smells, and taste amazing.
This Italian meatball sauce uses a few ingredients that are clean, simple, and inexpensive to make a sauce that is aromatic, rich, and yummy. Oil, passata or tomato sauce, herbs, spices, and of course meatballs are what you need to make it.
Tender meatballs cooked in a sauce that can be served over boiled pasta, rice, potatoes, with bread, or any side of your choice. Yum! We like serving it with spaghetti and long grain rice with a side of pan fried veggies.
This meatballs sauce recipe is rich tomato sauce for meatballs that is high in protein, rich in nutrients, gluten-free (if you use gluten-free meatballs), and delicious.
Related: Pan fried meatballs, Spaghetti, and meatballs
Ingredients
The detailed ingredient list, measurements, and directions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Meatballs
Passata- Can be substituted for tomato sauce or pasta sauce.
Onion
Garlic
Italian seasoning- If not available use a mix of parsley, basil, rosemary, thyme, and
Stock cubes- This is optional but I like to use beef stock cubes.
Sugar
Salt
Olive oil
How To Cook Meatballs In Sauce
Here's a step-by-step of how to make meatball sauce:
Place a pot on the stove on medium heat then add oil.
Add the chopped onion and cook it till it's tender, translucent, and fragrant. This takes about 2 minutes.
Stir in minced garlic and cook it for 40 seconds before stirring in the tomato paste and passata.
Add Italian seasoning, stock cube, pepper, salt and salt.
Stir and let the sauce cook for 5 minutes.
Add the meatballs, stir, cover the pot, and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Take the pot off the heat.
Serve and enjoy.
How Long To Cook Meatballs In Sauce
This will depend on the quantity of the sauce and the size of the meatballs. Smaller meatballs will soak in sauce faster than big ones. Also, you have to be careful the sauce doesn't dry up.
How long to cook meatballs in sauce is between 10-30 minutes. This is based on using ready-cooked meatballs.
If cooking the meatballs raw in the sauce, you might have to add more time.
It is cooked when the sauce is thickened, and the meatballs have had time to soak in some of the sauce.
What To Serve With
This meatball sauce can be served with pasta like boiled pasta, spicy pasta, Spinach Pasta, and lemon pasta.
It also pairs well with rice like this long grain rice, instant pot basmati rice, curry rice, jollof rice, and Yellow rice.
Serve with potato dishes such as boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, Parmentier potatoes, Pan fried sweet potatoes, air fryer potatoes and onions, and air fryer red potatoes.
Soak up the sauce with bread like no yeast bread, bread rolls, or this soft bread.
Vegetable dish like baked vegetables, pan fried vegetables, fried broccoli, boiled asparagus, and also goes well with it.
How To Store
It stores and reheats well. In fact, the flavor intensifies by the second day as the sauce and meatballs have longer to marinate.
To store, let it completely cool then transfer it to a sealable container and put it in the fridge where it will last for up to 3 days.
To store it in the freezer: Transfer it to an airtight freezer-safe container or Ziploc, label it with name and dates then freeze it for up to 4 months.
It can be easily defrosted and reheated.
How to reheat on the stovetop: Transfer meatball sauce to a pot, add some water, and cook it on medium heat for 3-5 minutes or until it's heated through.
Reheating it in the microwave- Add to a microwave-safe bowl and microwave it on high settings at 30 seconds intervals till it's warmed through.
To reheat it in the oven: Transfer it to an oven dish, and cover it with foil or baking paper. Put in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until warmed through to how you like it.
Tips For Making Meatball Sauce
Here are helpful tips for making the best meatball sauce:
- You can double this recipe if you require more portions.
- The sauce alone can be doubled and frozen to add meatballs to it at a later time.
- You can make the meatballs ahead and freeze so cooking the sauce.
- Let the meatballs gently simmer in sauce to infuse the flavors.
- Sugar is to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.
- Make the sauce as spicy as you like by adjusting the pepper quantity.
FAQS
Yes, you can cook raw meatballs in sauce however they will not be browned and held and the flavor will slightly differ to browned meatballs sauce
Simmer meatballs in sauce for 30 minutes up until 2 hours but make sure the sauce is not dried up in the process.
Yes. The longer the meatballs sit in sauce the more time it gets to flavor the sauce and infuse flavor.
More Sauce Recipes
Chicken in tomato sauce
Sauce
Peri Peri Sauce
Garlic butter sauce
Marinara sauce
Bbq sauce
More Meat Recipes
Meat pie
Spaghetti and meatballs
How to mince meat
Instant pot beef tips
Ground beef seasoning
Boiled ground beef
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Easy Meatball Sauce Recipe
Equipment
- Pot
- Spoon
Ingredients
- 12 Meatballs Pan fried, baked, or air fried
- 1 small Onion chopped
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon Tomato paste (tomato puree)
- 2 500g Passata or canned Chopped tomatoes
- ½ tablespoon Italian seasoning
- ½ teaspoon Black pepper or to taste
- 2 tablespoons Olive oil or vegetable or sunflower oil
- 5 g Beef stock cube
- Salt to taste
- ½ teaspoon Sugar
Instructions
- Place a pot on the stove on medium heat then add oil.
- Add the chopped onion and cook it till it's tender, translucent, and fragrant. This takes about 2 minutes.
- Stir in minced garlic and cook it for 40 seconds before stirring in the tomato puree and passata.
- Add Italian seasoning, stock cube, pepper, sugar and salt.Stir and let the sauce cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the meatballs, stir, cover the pot, and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.
- Take the pot off the heat.Serve and enjoy.
Notes
- You can double this recipe if you require more portions.
- The sauce alone can be doubled and frozen to add meatballs to it at a later time.
- You can make the meatballs ahead and freeze so cooking the sauce.
- Let the meatballs gently simmer in sauce to infuse the flavors.
- The sugar is to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.
- Make the sauce as spicy as you like by adjusting the pepper quantity.
Nutrition
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