Growing up, both of us thought of spaghetti and meatballs as a Sunday dinner. With good reason: Some versions call for slow cooking tender meatballs in homemade sauce, which is definitely more appropriate for weekend life. But as it turns out, you don’t need a long afternoon of slow cooking to make a tasty bowl of spaghetti and meatballs — especially if you use ground Italian sausage as a small shortcut to big flavor. And thank goodness given how much our kids love it! This is a version you can whip up any day of the week.
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Weekday Spaghetti and Meatballs
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
Growing up, both of us thought of spaghetti and meatballs as a Sunday dinner. With good reason: Some versions call for slow cooking tender meatballs in homemade sauce, which is definitely more appropriate for weekend life. But as it turns out, you don’t need a long afternoon of slow cooking to make a tasty bowl of spaghetti and meatballs — especially if you use ground Italian sausage as a small shortcut to big flavor. And thank goodness given how much our kids love it! This is a version you can whip up any day of the week.
Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground Italian sausage (mild or hot)
½ an onion, chopped
4 cloves or garlic, microplaned or finely chopped
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Oil spray
1 lb spaghetti
1 32-ounce of your favorite spaghetti sauce
Olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly spray a rimmed sheet pan; set aside. To a large bowl, add the ground beef, ground sausage meat, chopped onion and garlic, and spices. Using your hands, mix well, being careful not to over work the meat (which can make for tough meatballs).
- Dampen your hands with some cold water and roll the meat mixture into balls just slightly larger than golf ball sized. You should get about 24 meatballs total; place on the prepped sheet pan and lightly spray the tops of the meatballs with oil.
- Bake the meatballs for 20-25 minutes, until they register at least 140 (and hopefully not much more than 145) degrees F. Remove from the oven and set aside.
- While the meatballs are in the oven, cook the pasta according to package directions, with one small exception: boil the spaghetti for 3 minutes fewer than directed. Also be sure to save a mug full of water before draining the spaghetti.
- While the spaghetti momentarily sits in the colander, add your jar of spaghetti sauce to the emptied pot along with a hearty splash of the cooking water and a glug of good olive oil. Turn the heat to medium and add the pasta, tossing well to coat. After about a minute, add the meatballs and toss some more to coat them as well. Continue heating for another minute or two, until the sauce clings perfectly to the pasta and meatballs, then turn the heat off and serve immediately.
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 35
