Easy Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe

Prep Work

First off, we have a little bit of prep to do. Of course, the main part of this is the meatballs. Spaghetti makes itself pretty easily. So, you want to start off with one onion that we’re going to give a nice fine chop to. My knife skills are not the best in the world, but I will say I can get food on the table pretty quickly because I can chop fairly fast. This is the part that really slows people down when you make dinner. So for an onion, have it vertical slices and then you can chop away. I also want a quarter cup or about 10 g of beautiful fresh flat-leaf parsley, not the waxy curly kind. Just give it a nice chop and mind your fingers.

Choosing the Meat

Today I’m making the meatballs with pork and ground beef, but you can use your favorite meat. It could be all ground beef. It could be like a full-fat turkey. It’s really up to you. The main thing is to not choose a super-lean meat because then your meatballs are going to be rubbery. You also want half a cup of freshly chopped basil. This adds so much flavor. It’s one of the things I love growing in my garden.

Garlic Prep

This recipe is using a bunch of fresh garlic, too. You’ll want three cloves for the meatballs and four cloves for the spaghetti. However, I will not be mincing this. I do not have the patience for that anymore. So, if you have one, I suggest you grab your garlic press. Just get the skin off the garlic cloves first. And of course, whenever you see garlic in a recipe, it is a suggestion. So, if you want more, use six cloves. It’s totally up to you.

Mixing the Meatballs

My prep’s all done. So, grab a big bowl. These meatballs are going to come together in a flash. Now, in our large bowl, we’ll combine half a cup of breadcrumbs, half a cup of freshly grated parm. You could use pre-grated parm, though. It’s fine. Our parsley, and two eggs. So, one, no shells. And two, and I’m going to add in three of my cloves of garlic. And for some seasoning, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 3/4 of a teaspoon of cracked pepper. Now we can stir this together until it’s nice and combined. This is optional, but you could add the zest of two lemons in here. It gives you so much lift, and I love the flavor. My delicious ingredients are all mixed up. So, now we’re going to add one pound of ground beef and one pound of ground pork. But, as I said earlier, use your favorite meat. Just make sure that it is a fattier version, not the lean one. And now you’re going to use your clean hands to mix this all together. So, work it together and just try to be careful and not overmix. When you overmix your meatballs, they’re going to be a little bit less tender. But at the same time, you want to distribute all these delicious ingredients.

A Bit of History

So we think of this as an Italian dish, but it’s an Italian American dish. This dish comes from the late 1800s. It became popular in the early 20th century. So meat is just much more cheap in the US at this time. And so this was an Italian-American dish that took advantage of that. And there are tons of variations, of course.

Shaping the Meatballs

All right, that looks nice and mixed. My hands are not in a happy place. I’m going to wash these and have a little bowl of water because when we shape our meatballs, it is so much easier if your hands are damp. You have a choice here. You could scoop all your meatballs out right now and stage it out and then cook them all together. Or you can scoop batches, cook batches, scoop batches, cook batches. That’s what I would normally do just to save time. But for the sake of moving cameras, we’re going to scoop them all out right now and then cook them. You want about 2 oz meatballs. So when you do this, you’ll get 18 of them approximately. You can use an ice-cream scoop for uniformity and ease, but you could also just give them a quick roll afterwards so they’re nice and pretty. Scoop and roll. Scoop and roll. Really easy. And by the way, this is a great job for helpers in the kitchen. Helpers with clean hands. My family loves meatballs. Could be meatballs with spaghetti or any kind of pasta, even rice. And I have to tell you, there’s some time savers you can do, too, cuz a lot of the times we’re making dinner at the end of the day, and you just don’t have more than maybe 25 minutes. So, these meatballs could be prepped a day ahead. Just cover them in plastic on the baking sheet and then cook it all together. Or you can cook your meatballs, you could make your sauce, and then reheat those and make your pasta when you’re ready to serve. Or you could use your favorite store-bought marinara sauce instead of making it from scratch. So, those are awesome time savers for you. And I’m going to pan-fry these meatballs today, but you could also just bake them, which is going to be a time saver. When you roll the meatballs, it gives them more of a uniform shape, but it also helps compress them together so they don’t fall apart. If you just want to use the ice-cream scoop and you don’t want to do the hand rolling, that’s fine. Just give it a really good press in the bowl before plopping it out, and that’ll compress them, too. Just like that.

Browning the Meatballs

Once your first batch or all of your meatballs are formed, it’s time to get that Dutch oven nice and hot. Medium heat. And you’re going to add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. One, two, three. Per. Give us a minute or two. So, the oil is nice and hot. It should be shimmering in the pan and then we’re going to start cooking these up. You’re going to turn your meatballs occasionally so they brown all over and they’re going to finish cooking in the sauce as it simmers. So don’t worry about having them cooked all the way through. My oil is nice and hot. It’s time to add the meatballs in. And the main thing is is not to overcrowd them. So give them a little bit of room. And I will admit that I have slightly smaller meatballs than I should. Um, I just used the wrong scoop. It’s fine. It just means it’s more work for me. You get that 2 oz scoop. Supposed to have like 18 meatballs and I had 20 something. So, I knew thing something had gone wrong. Your meatballs will cook for anywhere between 6 to 8 minutes. We’re going to brown them all over and just make sure we turn them occasionally. If you don’t want to do this because it’s too much work for you or you love pan frying, pop them onto a baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 20 to 30 minutes or until they’re baked mostly through. These smell so good already. Okay, once your first batch is nicely browned, we’re going to remove those onto a different plate or baking sheet and just work away until all our meatballs are cooked. And continue on with the next batch. Don’t let your Dutch oven sit empty for too long because it will get very hot. My last batch is all browned, so I’m taking these out and setting them aside. And now we can work on the sauce.

Making the Sauce

Technically, you could have started the sauce at the same time you were browning these, but that’s very complicated to explain. So, we’re going to do this one at a time. It’s hard to explain on camera, that is. All right. All done. So, we started off with 3 tablesp of olive oil. Normally, your meatballs would kind of like absorb almost all of that as they cook. But you, if you take a look in here, this is filled with deliciousness because the fat rendered out of the pork and beef. And now I have a combination of olive oil, pork fat, and beef fat, which have tons of flavor. We want to use some of this to cook our sauce in, but this is too much. So, we’re going to remove two tablespoons with care. Now we’re going to add the onion and cook it for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and getting all those delicious brown bits off the bottom. I’m setting this back on medium heat. Pop those onions in. All of them. And now we’re going to stir and scrape the pot down. You want to get those brown bits off so they are in the sauce and adding flavor. M smells so good. So, my onion’s nice and softened. It’s been about 5 minutes, and now we’re going to add our garlic. Add your minced garlic in, or if you’re using a press, press it in. And that was four cloves of garlic, or more if you want. Now, we’re adding 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of optional red pepper flakes. I love the heat, though. We’re going to cook this for 1 minute while stirring constantly. You don’t want your garlic to burn here. Now it’s time to add two 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes. and second can and half a cup of water just to help thin things out a bit. It might seem like you have a lot of fat in here if you’re seeing some bubble up to the top, but it’s really going to change the mouth feel of the sauce and help coat the pasta better. I mean, honestly, you could add you could add some more oil back in here if you want. Once your crushed tomato and water are in, we can add a bay leaf fin. It will add flavor, I tell you. Even though it seems weird to add one leaf you’re going to take out and one teaspoon of dried oregano. We’re also going to add 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of black pepper and a teaspoon of black pepper. We’re going to bring this to a simmer over medium heat. And once it starts to bubble, add the meatballs in. But do not stir them right away because they’re really tender right now and they need some time to cook and firm up a bit. You don’t want them breaking apart. This has come to a simmer. So, I’m going to add my meatballs in and cover this up. I can hear that this came to a simmer again. So, I’m going to reduce heat all the way to low. And we’re gonna let this simmer away covered for one hour. Every 15 minutes, give it a nice stir so those meatballs cook evenly and the sauce doesn’t burn at the bottom. So, it’s been about 15 minutes. I’m going to give this a stir. Oo, bubbling away. And cover it back up. And 45 minutes in, we’ll start our pasta. In the meantime, just give this an occasional stir while you do some dishes or something else you want. I’m at the 45 minute mark, so it’s time to uncover. Give this another stir. And I’m also setting a large pot of water to boil, which needs salt. Always salt your water and salt it liberally when you’re making pasta. Once your salted water’s come to a boil, we’re going to add 16 oz or one lb of spaghetti right inside the pot. My meatballs have been simmering for about an hour and now it’s time to add our half cup of chopped basil in right at the end. So uncover, sprinkle it in, and give it a stir. Also remove this bay leaf, cuz nobody wants to eat that. Stir the basil in. And now the sauce is done. But here’s the deal. My pasta just finished cooking. I drained it and I reserved a little bit of the pasta water, which is always a good idea. You want to have some of that starchy water that you can mix in to thin things out if needed. I’m going to grab about two cups of the sauce from here. Mix that with the pasta and some pasta water if needed. And then we’re ready to serve. Plate your pasta. Add your meatballs and sauce on top. Garnish with some grated parmesan and chopped basil if desired. And just like that, it’s ready to enjoy. I don’t care what brand it is. Homemade sauce is better every single day. And this one is packed with flavor. All that cook time really simmered the flavors together and it is just delicious. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.