Red sauce recipes for cooking like Nonna (or the one you wish you had)

(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

Grandmothers are having a moment.

The debut of the Netflix movie “Nonnas” (Italian-ish for “grandmothers”) has people talking about grandmothers, and appreciating them not just for their home cooking, but for their brand of unconditional love wherein you’re gazed at adoringly even after eating the entire bag of zeppole you were sent to the store to bring home.

“Nonnas,” based on the true story of a man who opens a restaurant in Staten Island to honor his mother and grandmother, captures a seemingly universal fantasy: a warm home where any potential problems are drowned out by love, laughter and a plate — or a buffet — of familiar, comforting foods: a casserole dish of lasagna; a pot of sausage and peppers; platters piled with meatballs, zucchini swimming in olive oil, and chunks of focaccia; extra tomato sauce (aka “red sauce” or “gravy”); a cut crystal bowl of parmesan; and platters of Italian cookies — straight from the heart and hands of the person who loves us most in the world. The promise of the nonna is not just the food. It’s that love.

I did not have this kind of grandmother. My grandmother Adela, on my dad’s side, didn’t cook — nor look at me adoringly as far as I remember. My grandmother Birdie, on my mom’s side, cooked exactly one thing: oatmeal! Safe to say neither of them loved me more than anyone else in the world. For those of us who didn’t grow up with the real deal, the fantasy of the forgiving nonna is still appealing. And for those who did, forget about it. My friend Toni Vartanian (né DiSanti) said she bawled through the opening scene, remembering Sundays at her grandparents’ house in San Diego’s Little Italy, with her parents, five uncles, all their wives, and three or four cousins from each pair. The women, she recalled, “pulled out the pots and pans and made music and danced in the kitchen.”

Sign me up! There’s a popular saying that there are two kinds of people in the world: Italians, and those who wish they were Italian. After watching “Nonnas,” I might amend the saying to: There are two kinds of Americans: Italian-Americans, and those who wish they were Italian-American. At least on Sundays. “Nonnas” has been No. 1 on Netflix’s list of “Global Top 10 Movies” since it debuted on Mother’s Day, with over 15 million viewers to date.

The movie is also an homage to Italian-American cuisine, which has been having its moment now for a decade.

In the 1990s, regional Italian cuisine, and Cal-Ital, eclipsed the red-sauce-heavy Italian food we grew up eating, whether it was served to us by a nonna or we experienced it at a checkered-tablecloth restaurant with wicker-covered wine-bottle candelabras.

But we’ve returned to comforting Italian-American favorites; it was as if we all went on a collective exotic vacation only to come back with a new appreciation for the joys of home. Spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, lasagna, anything with ricotta cheese, and red sauce have reappeared at restaurants all over town. And the good news is, these dishes, which many might have seen as one-note, have been reimagined, using different (but not necessarily more difficult) cooking techniques and better ingredients.

In “Nonnas,” the film’s star, played by Vince Vaughn, goes through the movie searching for the secret to his nonna’s gravy. But all along, we know that the real secret to the sauce won’t be found in a missing ingredient. The secret ingredient is his grandmother’s love, and his memory of the feeling of being in the bosom of his family’s home. And those of us who don’t have that memory can get in the kitchen and make new memories. Whatever you decide to cook, just be sure to do as Nonna instructs and, “Put in your heart.”

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Nonna’s Meatball Sandwiches

These meatballs — recipe courtesy of the author’s nonna — are made with a combination of beef and Italian sausage and simmered in tomato sauce, making for light, tender, flavorful meatballs. Put them in a sandwich, enjoy them on their own, with Butter Garlic Bread (see below) for sopping up the sauce, or serve them on top of spaghetti. There’s plenty of sauce (here referred to as “tomato gravy”) in this recipe for that, too.
Get the recipe.
Cooking time: 3 hours. Serves 4.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Buttery Garlic Bread

Thick loaves of white bread topped with a golden layer of garlicky butter is a must to soak up whatever flavors await at the table, or to act as a raft for meatballs, sausage, caponata or whatever other flavors await at the table. IMO, twice as much butter and olive oil wouldn’t be too much. But (as the saying goes) I’m not a doctor.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 15 minutes. Serves 6 to 8.

(Genevieve Ko/Los Angeles Times)

Spaghetti and Meatballs

When I wrote a pasta cookbook for two women in Sicily and mentioned one morning that in America, we ate spaghetti with meatballs, they gasped! What do you mean “with?” They asked. “The meatballs are on top of the spaghetti?” Meatballs are a side dish in Italy, but in America, two or three of the savory, juicy balls sitting on top of a bowl of spaghetti, the whole story dressed in red sauce, is part of the American experience.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 ½ hours. Serves 4 to 6.

(Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)