Many of us, like the author of this article, love meatballs and pizza. Just not together! We think of meatballs as something you have on a sandwich — maybe in a restaurant — or a delicacy you make at home to go with spaghetti.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, managing culinary director at seriouseats.com, (pictured) hadn't embraced meatball pizza until he tasted the meatball pizza at Motorino and then at Best Pizza in Williamsburg. The noted food blogger describes the combo as "two Italian-American favorites, all rolled into one spectacularly comforting dish."

He goes on to describe how he makes his own meatball pizza, prioritizing the quality of the meatballs and the taste of the sauce as the top two elements in a successful meatball pizza mashup marriage. 

Adding that there's a "bit of finesse to getting it right," Lopez-Alt recommends a short-cut to making the sauce for this pie taste more like meat and less like tomatoes. He suggests simmering ground beef in the sauce after browning it in a pan in a bit of olive oil.

For more secrets to constructing the quintessential meatball pizza, read on.