Ina Garten’s chicken meatballs solve a specific problem that most meatball recipes do not address: how to make a meatball from lean poultry that is as moist and satisfying as one made from fatty pork and beef. The solution she developed involves ricotta cheese worked directly into the meatball mixture — the ricotta provides the fat and moisture that chicken lacks, binds the mixture gently, and adds a subtle dairy richness that makes the finished meatball tender rather than dense.
The result is a meatball that works in Italian-American red sauce, in a white wine and herb braise, in a lemony piccata-style preparation, or simply roasted and eaten with nothing more than good olive oil and sea salt. It is one of those recipes that becomes a permanent fixture of home cooking once you have made it — reliable, adaptable, and significantly better than any meatball made from packaged ground chicken without the ricotta technique.
Meatballs Across Italy
The meatball — polpetta in Italian — is one of the most regionally variable dishes in Italian cooking, and the Italian-American version familiar to most Americans bears little resemblance to most of what is actually eaten in Italy. The giant meatball served with spaghetti in red sauce — the definitive image of Italian-American cooking — is essentially absent from Italian cuisine in its homeland. Italians do not typically combine meatballs with pasta in a single dish. The polpetta in Italy is a second course — a protein component served after the pasta, not with it.
In Naples the polpetta is made from beef and pork, fried in lard, and served as part of the Sunday ragù — cooked in the tomato sauce for hours until the meat is tender and the sauce has absorbed everything the meatballs have to give. The meatballs are removed and served separately, the sauce used for pasta. This is the correct Neapolitan method and it produces the best version of the Italian-American combination by treating the two components correctly rather than combining them prematurely.
In Rome polpette are typically smaller, seasoned more simply with parsley and Parmigiano, and served in a light tomato sauce as a secondo rather than piled on spaghetti. In Sicilian cooking the meatball takes on Moorish influences — pine nuts and raisins sometimes appear in the mixture, reflecting the Arab culinary heritage that defines so much of Sicilian cooking and distinguishes it from the mainland tradition.
In northern Italy — Milan, Bologna, Piedmont — the polpetta is often made from veal rather than beef, served in broth or with a white wine sauce, and treated with the delicacy that northern Italian cooking applies to most meat preparations. The ricotta meatball that Ina Garten makes is closest to this northern Italian tradition — chicken rather than veal, but similarly light and dairy-enriched rather than dense and red-sauce-dominated.
The Ricotta Technique
The technical reason ricotta works in chicken meatballs is fat content and protein structure. Ground chicken — particularly the lean breast meat that is most widely available — has a low fat content that produces dry, dense meatballs when cooked. Adding ricotta introduces fat in a form that is fully integrated into the mixture rather than marbled through it, which produces a more even distribution of moisture throughout the meatball.
The ricotta also affects the protein structure. The casein proteins in the cheese interfere with the tight binding of the chicken proteins during cooking, producing a more open, tender texture rather than the rubbery compaction that lean chicken meatballs without binders typically produce. This is the same principle that makes adding milk-soaked bread (panade) to meatballs more tender — the dairy proteins interrupt the meat proteins — but ricotta achieves it more cleanly and with less impact on the meatball’s flavor.
Use whole-milk ricotta, not part-skim. The fat is the point. Part-skim ricotta has been processed to remove the fat that makes whole-milk ricotta work in this application.
The Recipe
Ingredients (makes about 24 meatballs, serves 4 to 6)
- 1½ lbs ground chicken (preferably a mix of breast and thigh)
- ½ cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
- ½ cup fresh breadcrumbs (from about 2 slices of white bread, crusts removed)
- ¼ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh basil, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1½ teaspoons kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Olive oil for cooking
Instructions
Make the mixture. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix gently with your hands until just combined — do not overwork the mixture or the meatballs will be dense and tough. The mixture should be soft and slightly sticky. If it feels too wet to shape, refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Shape. With damp hands, roll the mixture into balls about 1½ inches in diameter — roughly the size of a golf ball. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment. Refrigerating the shaped meatballs for 15 to 30 minutes before cooking helps them hold their shape.
Cook — roasting method. Preheat oven to 400°F. Drizzle the meatballs with olive oil. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes until cooked through and golden brown on the outside. This is the simplest method and produces a slightly drier exterior with a tender interior.
Cook — pan method. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, cook the meatballs for 2 to 3 minutes per side until browned on all sides. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking for 5 to 6 minutes until cooked through. The pan method produces better browning and more flavor but requires more attention.
Finish in sauce. For the best result, finish the meatballs in whatever sauce you are serving them with — 5 to 10 minutes of gentle simmering in tomato sauce, white wine and herbs, or lemon butter allows the meatballs to absorb the sauce flavors and the sauce to absorb the meatball juices.
Serving Suggestions
With classic tomato sauce and spaghetti — the Italian-American standard. The ricotta meatballs are light enough that this combination does not feel heavy.
In a white wine, lemon, and caper sauce — essentially a piccata preparation applied to meatballs rather than chicken cutlets. Deglaze the pan with white wine after browning, add chicken stock, lemon juice, and capers, reduce to a light sauce, and finish with butter and parsley. This is the most elegant version.
In broth — a light chicken or vegetable broth with small pasta, Parmigiano, and fresh herbs. The northern Italian way, and the most delicate.
Simply roasted with olive oil and sea salt, served with a green salad and crusty bread. Sometimes the simplest application is the best one.
Italy and the Meatball Tradition
One of the reliable pleasures of traveling in Italy is eating the food that Italian-American cooking adapted and comparing it to the original. The polpette in a Roman trattoria bear enough resemblance to the meatballs of Italian-American Sunday dinners to be recognizable and enough difference to be instructive about how food cultures transform when they migrate. The portion is smaller. The sauce is lighter. The pasta arrives separately. The meal takes longer. Each of these differences reflects a specific Italian approach to eating — slower, more sequential, more respectful of individual components — that the American adaptation compressed into a single bowl.
For everything you need to plan an Italy trip see our complete Italy itinerary. For where to eat in Italian cities see our Florence food guide and our Venice food guide. For more Barefoot Contessa recipes see our Zucchini Bread and our Chicken Piccata.
Ingredients
Method
- Instructions
- Make the mixture. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix gently with your hands until just combined — do not overwork the mixture or the meatballs will be dense and tough. The mixture should be soft and slightly sticky. If it feels too wet to shape, refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Shape. With damp hands, roll the mixture into balls about 1½ inches in diameter — roughly the size of a golf ball. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment. Refrigerating the shaped meatballs for 15 to 30 minutes before cooking helps them hold their shape.
- Cook — roasting method. Preheat oven to 400°F. Drizzle the meatballs with olive oil. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes until cooked through and golden brown on the outside. This is the simplest method and produces a slightly drier exterior with a tender interior.
- Cook — pan method. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, cook the meatballs for 2 to 3 minutes per side until browned on all sides. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking for 5 to 6 minutes until cooked through. The pan method produces better browning and more flavor but requires more attention.
- Finish in sauce. For the best result, finish the meatballs in whatever sauce you are serving them with — 5 to 10 minutes of gentle simmering in tomato sauce, white wine and herbs, or lemon butter allows the meatballs to absorb the sauce flavors and the sauce to absorb the meatball juices.
