Mortadella & Beef Meatballs with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce Recipe
These mortadella spiked meatballs in roasted red pepper sauce are packed with flavor. Serve them as an appetizer, or toss them with your favorite pasta. Make sure you have some toasted bread handy for scooping up the delicious sauce.
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 lb ground beef grass-fed and/or organic preferred
- 1/2 lb mortadella diced into small pieces
- 1/2 cup parmesan grated
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup basil chopped - plus more for serving
- 2 eggs whisked
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 2 tsp salt
Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
- 2 red bell peppers cut in half - stem and seeds removed
- 2 vine ripe tomatoes medium in size
- 1/2 white onion medium in size, diced
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp salt plus more, to taste
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese grated - plus more for serving
Instructions
Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
- Heat oven to 450F and line a baking sheet with foil. Place bell pepper halves on sheet and roast for 18-20 minutes, or until peppers begin to take on some color. Remove peppers from oven, place in a medium bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to steam for 10 minutes (this will make it easier to remove the skin). Once cool enough to handle, remove and discard pepper skins - you'll have about 1 1/2 cups of roasted peppers.
- Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and prepare an ice bath in a bowl. Cut a shallow x into the bottoms of each tomato. Carefully drop tomatoes into boiling water for one minute then place the tomatoes in the ice bath. Remove tomatoes from ice bath and the skin should peel off with ease - discard skins.
- Place tomatoes and peppers into a blender and blend for 30 seconds until you have a semi-smooth puree. Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or large pot over medium heat. Add in onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softening begins - 6-7 minutes.
- Stir in minced garlic and cook for about 1-2 minutes until very fragrant.
- Then, mix in dried oregano.
- Pour in pepper and tomato mixture and season with salt. Bring mixture to a gentle simmer for 30 minutes (reduce the heat if the sauce begins to boil). Season with more salt as needed.
- Pour in heavy cream and 1/2 cup grated parmesan and stir to combine. Continue to gently simmer sauce until meatballs are finished in the oven.
Meatballs
- Heat oven to 350 F Combine all ingredients in a large bowl with your hands. Gently form into golfball sized meatballs - mixture should yield about 16 meatballs. Evenly space them apart on the baking sheet and put them into the oven for 20 minutes.
- After meatballs have baked in the oven, carefully nestle them into the pot with the sauce, reduce heat to medium low and cover the pot with a lid. Simmer meatballs in the sauce for 30 minutes. If you find that the sauce is too thin, add in some more grated parmesan until you've reached the desired thickness.
- To serve, spoon meatballs into a dish with some sauce, top with grated parmesan and garnish with fresh torn basil.
