Creole Meatballs and Red Sauce

Great Balls of Fire!

I love meatballs, I know I say this about everything I cook, but it's so true! I love a nice, moist, well seasoned meatball. I decided today to make my meatballs and spicy red sauce.

It's not the same as my Creole Sunday Ragu. My Creole Meatballs and Red Sauce is what I cook when I want to make traditional spaghetti and meatballs or meatball sandwiches. 

I start off with some high quality Italian sausage and ground turkey. You can use beef if your prefer. I love ground turkey so that is what I always use.

After mixing all the ingredients up, I use a 1/4 measuring cup to get all my meatballs uniform for baking. 

After about 20 minutes at 350 degrees this is what you get, nice, beautiful, moist meatballs. 

I allow my red sauce to cook for about 1 hour, before placing the baked meatballs in the sauce.

After 30 more minutes of cooking, the meatballs and sauce is ready to do whatever you like with it. Since baby girl is "vegan" she will not be eating the meatballs, but she did say she was going to cook her some mushrooms and pour sauce over them, add some mozzarella cheese, and make her a mushroom melt. It sounds good to me.

Creole Meatballs and Red Sauce

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hr 30  minutes
Total Time: 1 hr 50 minutes

Meatballs:

1 lb. ground turkey or beef
1 lb. Italian sausage (removed from casing)
1 bell pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno, diced
1 tbsp. creole seasoning
1 tbsp. Italian Seasoning
1 tbsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. onion powder
2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. smoked paprika
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. grated parmesean cheese
1/4 c. of heavy cream
1 c. Italian bread crumb
Sauce (recipe below)
extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Chopped all the vegetables except garlic. Place meat, sausage and half the vegetables in a large bowl. Add seasonings, egg, bread crumb, cheese and heavy cream. Add 3 cloves of chopped garlic to the meat. Mix well.

Wet hands slightly.

Form meatballs into golf ball size using a 1/4 measuring cup. Place into a lightly greased pan. Bake meatballs at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. And place in sauce long with pan juices.

Sauce:

1 can tomato paste
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
3 c. chicken broth
1 tbsp. creole seasoning
2 tsp. onion powder
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/2 c. chopped Italian parsley
2 bay leaves
remaining vegetables
remaining garlic
extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

In a large pan, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat, add vegetables and saute for 5 minutes, add garlic and saute 1 minute more, add seasonings and cook for 1 minute more.

Add tomato paste and cook for 5 minutes, add crushed tomatoes and broth. Toss in bay leaves and allow mixture to cook about 1 hour, uncovered, stirring occasionally over medium-low heat. Add meatballs and cook 30 more minutes. Remove bay leaves. Serve over your favorite hot pasta or stuff inside a hoagie roll filled with mozzarella cheese.

Mixture can be cooled, then frozen.