This recipe comes together VERY quickly, since it uses jarred pasta sauce. Perfect for when you want something nice in a hurry. ..and it’s EASY PEASY, too.
Quick and Easy Spaghetti and Meatballs
Serves 8.
for the meatballs:
2 pounds ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup plain, dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped white onion
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped or run through a garlic press
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
a sprinkle of finely chopped fresh Italian parsley (2 – 3 Tbsp?)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 large (25.5 ounce) jars of your favorite pasta sauce
(I like Muir Glen or Rao’s or Lucini)
3/4 lb to 1 lb of your favorite pasta
additional Parmesan cheese, to go over top of the finished dish
Set a large stockpot of lightly salted water on to boil.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set a cooling rack onto a baking sheet. Line the baking sheet with foil, for easier cleanup, if desired. Spray the rack lightly with cooking oil spray and set it aside.
Combine all meatball ingredients until well blended (clean hands work best for this). Gently pat and shape (don’t tightly pack; that will make the meatballs tough) the meat mixture into balls about the size of a ping pong ball. Set them gently on the rack.
Bake them until they are just browned around the outside. It’s OK if they are still a little underdone in the middle because they will finish cooking in the sauce. I don’t remember how long they took to cook, but start checking them at 5 minutes and keep a close eye on them. I frequently cook by smell: when something starts to smell like what it’s supposed to be, it’s usually starting to get done (in other words, when you smell meatballs…).
You can, of course, fry-cook the meatballs in a skillet, on the stove, if you’d rather, I just didn’t feel like dealing with all of the grease splatters that night.
While the meatballs are cooking, heat the jarred sauce to a gentle simmer in a large saucepan (make sure the pan is large enough for the meatballs to fit in later).
When the water is boiling, add the pasta and cook according to the package directions. Drain THOROUGHLY when ready and set aside. Do not rinse.
When the meatballs are ready, add them to the sauce in the pan and continue to simmer until sauce is thoroughly heated through and meatballs and done (at least 10 more minutes?).
Spoon some of the sauce over the pasta and toss gently to coat. Serve the pasta with more sauce and a few meatballs on top. Top with cheese and dig in!
This is how Boy eats his spaghettI:
Boy isn’t a big fan of tomato sauce, so if he encountered any chunky bits of tomato in the sauce, he picked them out and set them on the sides of his pasta bowl. (We also had sauteed spinach with our spaghetti that night, so that’s what the green bits are.)