Recipe: Spaghetti & Meatballs

Spaghetti & Meatballs has always been a childhood favorite of mine. It is an one-all-one meal, and has good balance of carbs, protein, and vegetables.

Ingredients

• 1 pack of spaghetti (or other pasta)
• 1 lb meat
  • Ground beef, pork, or veal
• 2 large tomatoes
• 1 large onion
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 6 white mushrooms
• 8 oz can of tomato puree
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb meat
  • Ground beef, pork, or veal
• 1 egg
• Herbs
  • Basil
  • Oregano
• Seasoning
  • Salt
  • Black pepper
  • Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Parmesan cheese (meatball/garnish only)
• Cayenne pepper (meatball only)
• Breadcrumbs (meatball only)

Instructions

Part 1: Tomato Sauce

1. Chop up onions and garlic
2. Put olive oil in pan, turn stove heat to Medium
3. Add onion and garlic to pan, with a pinch of salt
4. Cook until onions are soft and brown
   1. Stir occasionally
   2. Chop up mushrooms and tomatoes in meantime
5. Add mushrooms and tomatoes
6. Cook until mushrooms have softened
7. Add can of tomato puree and water
8. Add herbs and seasoning (except salt and cayenne pepper)
   1. Salt will be adjusted later
   2. About 1/2 tbsp each for herb, and 1 tbsp for each seasoning
9. Stir to combine and lower stove heat to Low
10. Let pot simmer uncovered for at least 1 hour

Part 2: Meatballs

1. Combine in bowl
   1. 1 lb meat
   2. Seasoning (~1 tbsp each)
   3. Herbs (~1/2 tbsp each)
2. Form into balls about 1.5″ diameter (like golf balls)
   • 1 lb of meat yields about 18 meatballs
3. Bake in oven or air fryer at 400º F about 15 minutes or until dark brown
   • When using the oven, turn broiler on High for last 5 minutes
4. Scoop 2 tbsps of meatball oil from the pan into the Tomato Sauce
5. Add meatballs into Tomato Sauce

Part 3: Spaghetti

1. Boil pot of water with a pinch of salt
2. Cook pasta until almost at desired texture
   1. About 8 minutes for almost al dente (firm texture)
3. Strain pasta

Part 4: Final Assembly

1. Add strained pasta into a larger pot
2. Add Tomato Sauce over pasta
   • Taste sauce for seasoning
3. Mix together pasta with the Tomato Sauce
4. Serve mixed pasta with meatballs

Notes

The air fryer use is the Black BELLA 14538 2.6 Qt. I use it a lot because it is essentially a small convection oven. It heats up to 400º F really quickly because of the smaller volume.

There is one scene from Nickelodeon’s Rugrats which comes to mind. An episode starts with a closeup of noodles getting sucked up as Angelica is messily slurping them up. Her dad then instructed her how to properly eat spaghetti by twirling them around a fork (but then slurping them up himself anyways).