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Grandma's Old Italian Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

"Grandma's sauce is an old recipe that she brought over from Italy. It is a long process with strange ingredients, but they all come together to make the best sauce I have ever had. The long process is worth your trouble the minute you take your first bite."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 21 ingredients
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Grandma's Old Italian Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Grandma's Old Italian Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

24 meatballs with sauce
Prep1 hr 30 min
Cook6 hr 30 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1226Calories
74 gProtein
49 gFat
116 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 13 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Beef100g cooked250
Pork100g cooked242
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Basil5 leaves fresh (2.5g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Vealnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, garlic, pork, tomato, sugar, pepper, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, garlic, pork, tomato, sugar, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.