We Tested 5 Meatball Recipes From Famous Chefs — There Was One Clear Winner

Great meatballs can turn a simple pasta dish into something hearty, cozy, or even elegant. Spooned into soft, long rolls and loaded with tomato sauce and melty cheese, they make a delicious sub filling from a neighborhood deli. And when you need a break after navigating the busy crowds at Ikea, there’s no better respite than those sweet and tangy little meatballs from the food court.

Just about every cuisine has some version of a meatball. The ingredient lists are typically pretty simple: ground meats like beef, pork, and/or veal mixed with aromatics and held together with binders or fillers like eggs, breadcrumbs, or even milk-soaked sandwich bread. 

Since there are so many different ways to make meatballs, we wanted to find our absolute favorites from famous chefs. We turned to the Food & Wine archives to test recipes from Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, Giada De Laurentiis, Jacques Pépin, Christian Puglisi, and Alex Stupak. Recipe testers in the Food & Wine Test Kitchen prepared each dish and gathered with editors to judge each on the flavor and texture of the meatballs along with the accompanying sauce. While we enjoyed all the recipes, one stood out as both distinctive and incredibly delicious.

Winner: Alex Stupak’s Oven-Roasted Meatballs with Tinga Poblana

Total time: 1 hour 45 minutes

A 2013 F&W Best New Chef, Alex Stupak was born in Massachusetts, attended the Culinary Institute of America, and worked as a pastry chef at prestigious restaurants including Alinea in Chicago, WD~50 in New York City, and Clio in Boston. As the chef and co-owner of New York’s Empellón restaurant group, he traded in his pastries and focused on Mexican cuisine. This background and inspiration shine through in his zesty and spicy meatball recipe, made with pork and beef and crushed tortilla chips.

Stupak’s Oven-Roasted Meatballs with Tinga Poblana recipe starts with the sauce. It blends charred plum tomatoes and garlic with chipotle chiles, then simmers this puree with onions, fresh chorizo, and chicken stock until thick. The meatballs are made with crushed tortilla chips, shredded Cotija cheese, garlic, dried oregano, ground pork and beef, and a mixture of milk and an egg. They’re roasted in the oven, then gently tossed in the sauce.

Oven-Roasted Meatballs with Tinga Poblana

1 hr 45 mins

The result is an incredibly flavorful meatball in a rich and spicy tomato sauce. One taster described it as a “fun departure” from the usual tomato sauce. Plus, the crushed tortilla chips give the meatballs a pleasant, uncommon corn flavor. This recipe had our tasters coming back for seconds to sample the delicious spicy tomato sauce and tender meatballs.

Best flavor combo: Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli’s Sicilian-Style Meatballs

Total time: 2 hours 15 minutes

Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli have spent the last two decades putting their mark on New York’s Italian-American food scene as co-owners of the Frankies Spuntino group of Italian eateries in Brooklyn. Their meatballs reflect this passion for Italian cuisine, with distinctly Sicilian flavors from dried currants and pine nuts alongside grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, marjoram, parsley, and white sandwich bread saturated in water. The flavors are decidedly balanced, with a hint of sweetness shining through the rich, aromatic meat. 

The sauce for their Sicilian-Style Meatballs is simple: a couple of cans of whole peeled tomatoes crushed and simmered with olive oil, salt, and pepper. That’s it. The ground chuck meatballs use water-soaked bread and eggs as binders and include garlic, parsley, marjoram, dried currants, pine nuts, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for flavor. The meatballs are pan-fried in plenty of oil and then simmered in the tomato sauce.

Sicilian-Style Meatballs

2 hrs 15 mins

Our tasters loved the interesting sweetness from the currants, noting that they provide an unexpected flavor that paired well with the beef. Considering that the meatballs are first fried, our tasters found them incredibly tender and not too fatty or greasy. Several tasters noted that these meatballs would be best served over polenta.

Best use of leftovers: Jacques Pépin’s Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes

With this recipe, legendary chef Jacques Pépin turns leftover roast meat, along with minced onion, celery, and garlic, into soft and tender meatballs. That’s right — the meatballs are not made with raw ground meat but instead with leftover roast beef, veal, or pork. Pépin says these boulettes (small balls) are a staple in French home cooking, and they are best served with salad or mashed potatoes.

In his recipe for Meatballs with Tomato Sauce, leftover chopped roast beef is pulsed in a food processor and mixed with a little flour, baking powder, minced onion, celery, garlic, dried thyme, black pepper, and eggs. The mixture is formed into balls and refrigerated before searing in a skillet until well browned. The sauce includes garlic, onion, dried thyme and oregano, and canned diced tomatoes. It’s simmered briefly before being blended and finished with chopped pitted green olives. 

Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

1 hr 20 mins

The end result was a meatball that tastes a lot like pot roast, in a very good way. Our tasters loved the very tender texture and the little bits of minced vegetables throughout. The tomato sauce was simple, yet the chopped green olives gave it a pleasant and unexpected brightness. One taster said they’d love these meatballs in a sub sandwich. Overall, this is a wonderful way to use up a leftover roast.

Tastiest sauce: Christian Puglisi’s Meatballs in ’Nduja Sauce

Total time: 2 hours 45 minutes

Christian Puglisi, former sous chef at Noma and founder of several restaurants in Copenhagen, stepped away from restaurants to reflect on life, food writing, regenerative farming, and his family. His Meatballs in ’Nduja Sauce recipe was prepared at a weeklong culinary retreat at Rocca delle Tre Contrade in Sicily, which may help explain the use of ’nduja, a spicy, spreadable Italian fermented pork salume. This ingredient is used in the sauce along with jarred tomato passata, cooked yellow onion, garlic, and stock. The ’nduja gives the sauce an excellent, spicy flavor that’s unlike any other on this list.

This recipe also stands apart from the others in that it asks you to grind your own pork shoulder and pork belly. The rest of the meatball ingredients are fairly straightforward, including hearty white bread soaked in milk, sautéed yellow onions, all-purpose flour, finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese, egg yolks, and pepper. Instead of being pan-fried or baked, the meatballs are broiled until lightly browned, then gently simmered in the sauce.

Meatballs in ‘Nduja Sauce

2 hrs 45 mins

This was the recipe where the sauce was really the star; our tasters loved its rich, kicky flavor and incredible depth. The challenge, however, comes from grinding your own meat. Not everyone has the equipment required to grind meat, and if you aren’t comfortable doing it, the process can be challenging. If you fall into this category, consider asking your butcher to grind some fresh pork shoulder and belly, or simply substitute 70/30 ground pork.

Most fragrant: Giada De Laurentiis’s Orzo-and-Ricotta Meatballs with Marinara

Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis is one of the most recognizable faces in food media. She has hosted several television cooking shows and written numerous cookbooks. Her entry in our meatball face-off, Orzo-and-Ricotta Meatballs with Marinara, is different in that it leans into warm spices like cinnamon and cloves and uses ricotta cheese and cooked orzo as binders. 

Orzo-and-Ricotta Meatballs with Marinara

1 hr 15 mins

Most of our tasters loved the fragrance that the warm spices contributed to the dish, though some found the flavors overpowering. The ricotta gave the meatballs a bit of moisture, helping to lighten the texture. But ricotta is a very mild cheese that doesn’t provide a great deal of flavor. Overall, tasters enjoyed the use of warm spices, and while the ricotta didn’t impart a big flavor, it did help keep these meatballs moist and tender.

Final takeaways

All of these meatballs are fantastic and certainly worth making. Whether you want a more traditional take like the Sicilian-Style Meatballs with pine nuts and dried currants or a meatball that tastes like pot roast thanks to the use of leftover roast beef, there’s something compelling here for everyone. But our hands-down favorite was from Alex Stupak, who takes a decidedly Mexican approach to his tinga-sauced meatballs.