Try mixing just the breadcrumbs and the milk ahead of time and letting it sit for 10 minutes before adding the other ingredients. It makes a huge difference (it’s the science behind a panade).
ETA: Also, I’ll refrigerate my meatballs about 30 minutes after forming them but before cooking to let them set.
I don’t brown them. Browning makes the painstakingly-formed nice round meatballs become more like “meat triangles”, and their outsides are kind of leathery. It also takes more time, makes more mess in the kitchen and dirties yet another pan. I just drop the raw meatballs directly into simmering sauce and they come out nice and round and taste wonderful.
It doesn’t need to dirty another pan. In fact it’s better if it doesn’t. Just brown the meatballs in whatever pan you’re going to make the sauce in. Put the meatballs to one side, make the sauce (picking up the nice brown meatiness from the bottom of the pan on the way), then drop the meatballs back in and simmer. The triangles and the leatheriness mentioned above are because you’re browning them too fast. Mine are usually in the bottom of a heavy pot for at least as long as it takes me to prep the other ingredients. Good meatballs are not a dish to be hurried.
That’s the way I do it. I prefer the texture and flavor of a browned meatball. In my mind without browning the meatball would fall apart in the sauce, but I’ve never made them that way, and I’ve had some that obviously weren’t browned, and intact.
[hijack]
What about meat sauce? Add the raw meat to the sauce, or brown it first?
[/hj]
I suppose it depends on how long you cook the sauce but I’ve never browned meatballs. I simmer spaghetti sauce for 4 hrs and add a little parmesan cheese to the meatballs to make them tender and juicy.
My Mom and Dad’s traditional Spaghetti and Meatballs is never browned. Just sort of “Meat Dumplings” school of thought. They are large meatballs, however and have quite a bit of crackermeal and egg and maintain their integrity quite distinctly. I’ve had them both ways and I prefer my Mom and Dad’s sauce and meatballs… just something about them. On the other hand, I would brown my swedish meatballs.
I think the simple poaching/stewing makes for a more tender ball, as opposed to browning. And definitely a more flavorful sauce.
Brown it first. At least, that’s the way I’ve always done it, so surely that’s some manner of universal law.
That’s a point I meant to make. I feel the meatball flavors the sauce as much as the sauce infuses into the meatball. But again, that’s a function of time.
I have seen recipes for bolognese that do not call for browning, saying that it keeps the meat tender and delicate. Here’s my standard bolognese, for instance. You do cook the meat a bit before adding all your liquid ingredients, but you do not brown it.
I made spaghetti and meatballs tonight and did not brown the meatballs first. I have always baked or browned them first but after reading the thread I made the meatballs, refrigerated them while the sauce was heating, then dropped them in and simmered for about 2 1/2 hours. The sauce had onions and garlic and was pretty spicy so I made the meatballs kind of plain, just bread (soaked in milk), one egg, a good handful of parmesan and some salt and pepper mixed with two pounds of ground chuck. The meatballs absorbed the flavors in the sauce and were very tender but held together just fine. They tasted great. This is definitely my new method for spaghetti and meatballs. It was easier, less messy and very good.
I’m talking my wife into trying them without browning first. How long do they need to simmer in the sauce? Hours and hours? 30 minutes?
She has some homemade spaghetti sauce in the freezer, so she’s starting on heating that right now. The sauce will be hot before adding the meatballs.
Meatballs are about 1 inch in diameter.
I bet she had a killer puttanesca sauce.
Half an hour will cook them through. I’ve never seen the need to cook them forever and ever.
Thanks. That was my wife’s thinking too. No one in this thread seemed to mention less than a couple hours for the unbrowned variety.
She just mentioned she had an Italian neighbor who seemed to always have a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove. So maybe it’s an Italian thing.
A slight hijack, but I have never made meatballs + sauce, not for serving over pasta that is. My mom taught me to make larger meatballs with rice, basically a spherical meatloaf, that she’d pour canned tomato sauce (plain old Hunts, not a full-fledged pasta sauce) over, and bake as a casserole. Quite tasty.
And I make a pretty decent ground-beef-based meat sauce.
But - say I wanna make actual meatballs. Do I have a big old pot of marinara simmering on the stove, and plop in a pound or so of the meatballs to simmer, sort of like they’re in a soup? Do I want a higher ratio of meatballs to sauce? Guide me, please!
The last time we got packaged meatballs, I knew the sauce I was using (a good quality marinara from a jar) wouldn’t be enough for really simmering, basically enough to coat the meatballs but it would leave a lot of air space in the saucepan and too many of them would be in the air and not getting heated. So I put the meatballs in a baking pan and cooked them in the oven for 20+ minutes, then warmed up the sauce and added them in. For the record, that was something like a pound of meatballs and a 28 ounce jar of sauce.
I had to jump into this conversation, jeez I hate signing up for these message boards - but I just did …
Okay - This whole discussion is so interesting since I am just about to make my first meatballs ever. It makes me excited and apprehensive all at the same time. I am going to go with making the meatballs and …
Dropping them right in the sauce - Please wish me luck 
Welcome to the Straight Dope SammyShine, you should know that this thread is from 2011, but that’s not a big deal.
I like to brown the meatballs because they keep their shape better. If they weren’t browned, I’d worry that they would get too mushy and fall apart. Anyway, good luck with your recipe.
Always cooked before putting in spaghetti sauce. In fact, I cook them separately and just spoon sauce over the meat ball.
I mean, Clemenza cooked the sauce less than a minute after putting in the meatball and sausages (visibly browned.)
I do that sometimes. Especially if I don’t have the right sauce to meatball ratio, or if vegetarians are joining us.