Inside the great meatball debate that has Italians boiling with rage: Fried or raw?

Raw, next question. 

It’s been a saucy controversy that has gotten Italian American cooks hot under the collar for generations: should you fry your meatballs, or cook ‘em right in the sauce? 

The home chef and social media personality Antoinette Gangi, known to her legion of followers as “Antoinette’s Italian Kitchen,” cooked her way into viral fame with a method she’s sworn by for decades.

But even she didn’t know how divisive it would be to declare cooking raw meat, an age-old tradition with fervent defenders and just as many detractors, as the best way in a now-viral video.

“I was at home in Vegas and it was 87 degrees and my son happened to film me in my summer dress making the meatballs raw in the sauce,” she told The Post.

That video ricocheted around the internet, riling up pro chefs and home cooks, and even earned her a catchphrase she’s stitched onto hats: “I don’t fry them, I don’t bake them, I throw them right in the sauce.”