Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe
This spaghetti and meatballs recipe is a classic Italian pasta dish. We paired it with a very simple Tomato and Butter sauce that only requires 3 main ingredients to make. There are two main components to this recipe (aside from the spaghetti): Meatballs and Tomato Sauce. Let’s go over what ingredients are needed for each.
Making the Tomato Sauce
The key to a good tomato sauce is to ensure you have high quality tomatoes. We usually use San Marzano tomatoes as they are considered one of the best canned tomatoes known their intense sweetness and concentrated flavour. They’re low in acidity, full of pulp, and contains few seeds.
In Italy, tomatoes labeled as “San Marzano” must adhere to strict DOP guidelines. DOP refers to the Italian protected designation of origin which governs where they’re grown and how they’re processed. It’s similar to the concept of calling sparkling wine “champagne” if it’s not from the region of Champagne, France. If you’re looking to get San Marzano tomatoes, make sure it’s authentic and not just overpriced tomatoes that are labelled “Italian-style tomatoes”. They should have the DOP seal below on the label.
You should be able to find this at most major grocery stores. For this recipe, we use approximately 2 cups of canned Italian tomatoes (we just ended up using this entire can). If you can’t find San Marzano tomatoes in your grocery stores, regular canned tomatoes work too.
Add the canned tomatoes, butter, and a whole medium onion (peeled and halved) in a large pot. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 45 minutes until the sauce has reduced and thickened. While the sauce is cooking, prepare the meatballs. When the sauce is done, salt to taste and discard the onion. Keep the sauce cooking on the lowest heat setting with the lid covered to keep warm until we are ready to assemble.
How to Make Meatballs
To make these meatballs, you will need the following ingredients:
- Ground Beef
- Egg
- Slice of White Bread (crust removed)
- Milk
- Parsley
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Nutmeg
- Parmigiano-Reggiano
- Onion
- Salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
- Dried Bread Crumbs (Panko)
Form Meatballs
In a small pan over medium heat, add the slice of white bread (with crust removed) into a pan with the milk. Allow the bread to absorb the milk and smash it gently with a fork until it turns into a pulp, similar to mashed potato in texture. Set aside and allow to cool.
Add the ingredients above (except the dried bread crumbs) into a large bowl and mix to combine using your hands. Take some of the mixture and form them into meatballs, roughly 1 1/2 inch in diameter. We made 17 meatballs with this recipe.
Prepare to Fry Meatballs
Once the meatballs have been formed, you can toss them in dried bread crumbs (panko). Meanwhile, prepare a medium-large pot of deep frying oil and preheat until the oil is 350F.
Once the oil has been pre-heated, fry the meatballs in small batches as to not overcrowd the pot. Fry for 3-4 minutes or until meatballs turn a dark golden brown color like the image below.
Assembling the Spaghetti and Meatballs
Cook the spaghetti
Once the meatballs and tomato sauce is done, you can start cooking the spaghetti as this takes the least amount of time. In a large pot of salted water, cook your spaghetti until al dente (or per your package’s cooking instructions). Reserve about 1 cup of pasta water before straining the pasta.
Add the strained pasta to the tomato sauce and toss to evenly coat the pasta in the sauce. Lastly, add in your meatballs to ensure everything is well coated in the tomato sauce. Serve immediately with freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano and chopped parsley for garnish.
Tips & Tricks to Success
Bring your meatball mixture up to room temperature before deep frying
We recommend leaving your meatball mixture out for about an hour before you start deep frying to bring it up to room temperature. The reason you don’t want to deep fry the meatballs straight from the fridge is that this will significantly reduce the temperature of your cooking oil (since the meat is still cold), affecting the ability of your meatballs to brown and crisp up and ultimately, increasing the overall cooking time.
Do not overcrowd the pot while deep frying
If you’re impatient like me, it’s tempting to put as many items into a pot as possible in the hopes of speeding up the cooking process. We do not recommend because similar to the reason provided above, you are actually dropping the overall temperature of the oil by crowding the pan/pot which will not only significantly increase your cooking time, but you will also slow down the browning/crisping process. Please only cook and fry in small batches!
Use sugar ‘fix’ canned tomato sauce
If you’re using San Marzano tomatoes, you may not need to add sugar to your tomato sauce as these tomatoes are naturally lower in acidity as mentioned above. However, if you’re not able to get your hands on San Marzano tomatoes, you can use regular canned tomatoes. However, these tomatoes tend to be more acidic so to counteract their acidity, we recommend adding a bit of sugar to the tomato sauce to reduce the tartness.
Save some of your pasta water!
You may have noticed in our recipe that we ask you to save about 1 cup of pasta water just before you strain the pasta. The reason why we want to save some of the pasta water is because it contains a lot of starch that was released from the pasta during the cooking process. This starch will help bind the sauce to the noodle even better. When assembling your spaghetti and meatball dish, just add a bit of this reserved pasta water to your tomato sauce until you get a desirable consistency and then add the rest of your spaghetti.
We really hope you give this recipe a try! If you did and you enjoyed it, please leave us a comment below and tag us on Instagram @cookingwithteamj.
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Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe
Ingredients
Meatball
- Slice of White Bread (crust removed)
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 lbs ground beef
- 1 tbsp onion, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
- dry bread crumbs (panko)
Tomato Sauce
- 2 cups canned Italian tomatoes (San Marzano)
- 5 tbsp butter
- 1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half
- salt to taste (~1/2 tsp)
- 300g spaghetti
Instructions
Tomato Sauce
- 1. Add canned Italian tomatoes (San Marzano), butter, and halved onion (skin removed) to a large pot and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce to a simmer and simmer for 45 minutes with the lid uncovered. While the sauce is simmering, you can prepare the meatballs.
Meatball
- 1. On a small sauce pan over medium heat, add milk and a slice of white bread (crust removed). Using a fork, lightly mash the bread to until the bread fully absorbs the milk and turns into a pulp. Set aside to cool once the milk has been fully absorbed.
- 2. Once the bread has cooled, add it to a large mixing bowl along with ground beef, onion, chopped parsley, egg, extra virgin olive oil, Parmigianino Reggiano, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Using your hands, mix in the mixture until it is well combined.
- 3. Grab a bit of the meatball mixture and form them into small meatballs, approximately 1 ½ inches in diameter. This yield 17 meatballs for us. Set aside on a large platter.
- 4. In a bowl, add 1 cup of dried bread crumbs (panko). Coat each meatball evenly in the dried breadcrumbs and set aside until you’re ready to deep fry.
- 5. When you’re ready to deep fry, prepare a medium-large pot of oil and preheat the oil to 350F. Once the oil is pre-heated, fry your meatballs in small batches as to not overcrowd the pot. Remove the meatballs and set aside on a wired rack lined with paper towel when done.
Assembly
- 6. When you’re ready to assemble your dish, prepare a large pot of salted water and cook your spaghetti until al dente (per your package’s instructions). Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water before you strain the pasta.
- 7. Add the reserved pasta water into the tomato sauce and bring to a gentle simmer again. Then, add in your strained spaghetti and toss to evenly coat in the tomato sauce. Finally, add in your meatballs and toss to ensure everything is coated in sauce. Serve immediately with some freshly grated Parmigianino Reggiano and chopped parsley for garnish.
