Frankies Spuntino Pork Braciole Recipe (2024)

Pork shoulder has a lot of very tough collagen that won't break down unless it cooks for 3 hours. Pork loin/chop, which you used, is all muscle and will overcook and dry out if cooked that long. So use the shoulder, or shorten the cooking time substantially.

Grandma saved the ends of salami and prosciutto and chopped them for braciole. She crumbled the cheeses and sometimes added hard boiled egg. The chopped filling makes the packets a little lumpy, but we loved the texture.

For Christmas Eve I made braciola with turkey breast, which I butterflied and filled with raisins, pine nuts, cheese, parsley, lemon zest and bread crumbs. The rolls get tied up and browned. Then I made a tomato sauce with onion, garlic, carrots, tomatoes (of course), fresh herbs, and let the turkey braciola cook in the sauce for an hour. To serve, you remove the twine, cut the rolls in slices (looks pretty) and serve with the hot tomato sauce. I served mine with creamy polenta - YUM!!!

Braciole can be made with veal (even harder to cone by here) or beef (use round and slice it yourself). I like pork and veal best and do one of two things. For just a few, buy thin-cut chops, cut the central medallions of meat away from the bone and pound them. The bones, with the remaining meat attached can be frozen and are good in a tomato sauce, "Sunday sauce," or stock. Or buy a boned shoulder, slice the larger muscles for braciole, and freeze the rest for braising. Worth it!

Does anyone know what I did wrong? The butcher handed me thin cut port chops when I asked for pork braciola cutlets. I pounded them, sprinkled the cheeses, garlic, and parsley, browned the rolled and tied logs in the oils, and I cooked them in the tomato sauce at 325 degrees for 3 hours. My husband pronounced them "dry." Where does the cheese go anyway? Did I cook them too long? I was careful to cover them with the sauce. Maybe I used the wrong brand of tomatoes?

I used a pork loin cut not a shoulder cut. It takes less time but may not have the same richness of flavor. The dish is wonderfully tasty!

Read the recipe. It has parsley, garlic AND two types of cheese in it!

In Italy braciola is a pork chop, usually pork, in Naples it's a pork steak, however in Rome it's always lamb or mutton.

I make the Franks' braciole from their cookbook all the time. And this is not that recipe. For one thing, theirs calls for all the cooking to be done on the stove top.

This is a one-pot meal. Brown, remove, add garlic to pot with olive oil if needed, deglaze with dry vermouth, return pork to pot with tomato sauce (I make my own from garden tomatoes, and ran it through the blender to get it smooth). I cooked this in the oven for about one hour...that was plenty. Next time I'll try stove top. It was great on pasta. Make sufficient quantity for leftovers...and leftover sauce, too.

Janet, me too. I do make braciole whenever I do up a kettle of 'Sunday Gravy,' about once a month but have always used beef flank steak and use Pecorino Romano more often than Parmegiano. Plan to try pork next month ... this looks just about right!

And have a stern word with your butcher, while you're at it!

I'm so sorry, Shawn! This recipe came straight from Frankie's cookbook, but we've updated the recipe here to include a range of cooking times as it can vary widely.

My nonni used pork or beef to make braciola. Instead of provolone, she added breadcrumbs to the cheese and parsley for a little body for the meat to grab onto. The braciola was seared as per the recipe but in her cast iron Dutch oven then the meat braised in the tomato/garlic sauce for hours. In her house it was always sauce, never gravy. It was delicious, but the meatballs were even better.

This is worth the slightly fiddling business with rolling up, tying, etc. Delectable.

Made this today with a few modifications (I know...) After browning the pork rolls, I deglazed the pan with vermouth, cooked it down, then added chopped garlic and finely diced tomatoes. Added the pork rolls to the sauce and cooked at 325° for about 1 hr. Perfectly done, not dry at all. One pot meal. Don't expect to see cheese in the middle; it melts into the sauce, which is the whole point. There are plenty of recipes out there with bread crumbs if you want to see stuffing.

I grew up in NYC area and thinly sliced cuts of beef for braciole were available at the grocery store—no such thing in Southern California (and forget finding a meatball mix, except at the overpriced Eataly). She stuffed her braciole with Parmesan cheese, parsley & breadcrumbs and simmered for quite a while in her sauce (not gravy) with meatballs like clouds & sausage. I’ve messed up trying to recreate the braciole, cooking into obliteration. Keep an eye on them: tender but not dry is the goal!

Do you know if I can freeze the cooked braciole's?

Can anyone recommend how to keep the cheese from dissolving into the sauce or is this simply inevitable? I had nice roll-ups with nothing in the middle.

My butcher didn't seem to know what pork braciola cutlets were (and I didn't either). He ended up cutting me 1/4 inch pork chops, which I wrapped. Is everyone else using a pork tenderloin and then cutting that into pieces for the individual cutlets? It came out ok, but I feel like the taste of the tomato sauce overpowered the stuffing inside, so it tasted bland to me. Sauce was also very runny, maybe because it only got 1hr in the oven?

My grandmother's were beef, stuffed with a thin layer of Swiss chard, bread crumbs, sultanas and parmesan, braised with some canned tomatoes, but not nearly as much tomato sauce.

I do pecorino instead of provolone and it’s molto bene!!

I created my version of this recipe~ stuffing: bread crumbs sauteed in garlic, lemon, and olive oil. Moved to a large bowl and added, pecorino romano cheese, pine nuts, raisins, flat leaf Italian parsley, salt/pepper. Used tenderized pork shoulder cutlets and tenderized beef top sirloin cutlets for the meat. Layered a thin slice of prosciutto then added the filling, rolled large side to small and tied. Put in roasting pan with sauce on 300, 5 hours later DELICIOUS!

I used beef flank steak (a little dear these days, alas), and added prosciutto and included some fresh oregano and marjoram to the cheeses and Italian parsley. Also used 3/4 cup red wine to the browning pan after draining some excess oil (not all), and added reduced wine and brown and black bits to the sauce. Rich, complex, delicious.

Flank steak. Have never used pork for braciole, but the stuffing recipe is on target. Mama never made Sunday Gravy without braciole and once in a while would get some pig skin to stuff the same way, follow the same rolling and tieing procedure, the skin would soften and was absolutely to die for. But Flank steak is what she always used and what I have done, but will give pork a try even as I have doubt about its possible tenderness. Pork gives Sunday Gravy a wonderful flavot ..Pork Neck Nones.

Addendum: Never cooked in the oven, always on stove top.

I followed this recipe several years ago assiduously; cooked it for the required time and it turned out to be very dry. What did I do wrong? Not control the heat carefully enough. I was disappointed.

Have I gone blind? Where's the provolone?

Big hit! Few changes:pork cube steaks;very thin, falling apart;chopped up some of the meat, mixed it w/the cheese, parsley & garlic.Good move-the cheese didn't melt out! Used toothpicks, removed before putting in the pan. Used a jar of good marinara-deglazed pan with white wine.More wine to swish out empty marinara jar, added & simmered sauce before pouring over meat.Topped with cheese and baked for about an hour as it was already tender.Served w/wilted spinach & cheesy polenta.

I actually found a three pack of braciola at the grocery. I made the sauce from scratch and cooked the two together for three areas. It was very good. I served it with polenta an a salad.