Spaghetti and Meatballs

Do you ever make a dinner, that's so good that you feel like the household culinary champ of the world? It's not too often that I make a dish that every single person in my family not just likes, but absolutely loves, sending them back for seconds. This was that meal for us, and I know that it's nothing fancy and new, but let me just tell you about these meatballs.

I had made meatballs in the past, and was totally turned off by them. Since I browned them before baking them, I felt like I was basically eating spaghetti, with big hunks of burger on top, and it wasn't very good. So, I didn't make any for a while. But when I got my Newman's Own Spaghetti sauce, I thought it might be fun to give meatballs another chance.

I found a great meatball recipe on recipezaar. Nothing fancy, just your regular meatball ingredients. But I didn't brown them this time, instead, I rolled them into balls and placed them on a cooling rack, on top of my baking sheet, which was covered in foil to catch all the fat that the meatballs rendered off when baking. The result were soft, flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth meatballs that my family couldn't stop eating. They were also wonderful as sandwiches in your favorite marinara a few meals later. These are a definite new favorite at our house.


And the Newman's Own sauce? Not bad! I'm normally not one for jarred spaghetti sauces, I always feel like they are too sweet and lacking a lot of flavor, but this stuff was much more robust and full of great flavor. I still added a bunch of minced onion and garlic, but I just can't help myself there! I also used some of it for a Shepherd's pie that I'll post soon. I'm all about the classics right now baby!

Spaghetti and Meatballs
Adapted by Recipezaar

Ingredients

Hot cooked spaghetti noodles
Newman's Own Spaghetti Sauce, or preferred Spaghetti Sauce
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash pepper

Directions

1. Cover a large baking sheet with tin foil and place a cooling rack on top of that. Preheat oven to 375.

2. In a large bowl, blend bread crumbs, beef, eggs, cheese, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on top of baking rack. Bake for 15 minutes, or until cooked through.

3. Assemble spaghetti, meatballs and sauce, and be sure to have lots of napkins!