MEATBALLS and
SPAGHETTI

makes 8 serves, 4 meatballs per portion and a few for seconds

The meatballs freeze brilliantly in portions

Meatballs with spaghetti is the only Italian pasta dish that I love that has more than four ingredients. My favourite pasta is Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. Spaghetti with garlic, chilli, parsley and your very best extra virgin, salt and freshly ground black pepper….absolutely no cheese!

It is astonishing that Meatballs with spaghetti is so rarely found on restaurant menus…maybe because it is quite a bit of work. It’s not just the meatballs but they require a perfect Napolitano sauce. No crap straight from the supermarket shelves, or a can protesting to deliver, but a sauce rich with quality tomatoes, sweated onions, garlic, Mutti tomato paste and some soil grown basil. The blanketing sauce will be even better if you have thrown in some parmesan Reggiano rinds.

My favourite Meatballs with spaghetti in a restaurant was a long time ago, at least ten years ago. When Sarah Contin was sous chef at the sadly now closed River Cafè Adelaide it was her best-selling special. I am not a big Italian restaurant diner and prefer to keep my Italian cooking for home and if I am in an Italian restaurant in Adelaide, I no longer risk ordering meatballs. They do not sit on the top of the spaghetti, it is not the diner’s job to mix sauce, meatballs and pasta…..the pasta must be mixed through the sauce and meatballs in a pan and on heat.

I also learned a folly with the Magimic Cook Expert….I used the general mixing blade and, although juicy and squishy, the texture was smoother than I like. Next time, after I have turned the bread into breadcrumbs I will swap to the dough blade, and whilst it will be well mixed the meatballs with have a more defined texture.

Cook Expert blitzes this quantity and a large Magimix will also cope but to keep the texture use the mixing blade after you have processed the bread for breadcrumbs. You can let the Cook Expert mix the entire recipe, with a food processor, with the motor running add the meat down the feed tube.

PUBLISHED 14 MAY 2026 AO

FOR THE MEATBALLS

180g white crustless bread, torn and processed into soft breadcrumbs

25g p/w finely chopped garlic
250g p/w finely chopped onion
15g Maldon sea salt
5g freshly and coarsely milled black pepper
2g chilli flakes…optional
½ a bunch of curly parsley, stalked and chopped
250g traditional ricotta
2 eggs
1kg fine pork and veal mince

oil for frying ….a mix of veg oil and really good EVO works best

FOR THE SAUCE

1500g Olive’s Tomato Sauce
1 x 400g Mutti crushed tomatoes
½ tube Mutti organic tomato paste
parmesan rinds
basil leaves, no stalk

FOR THE PASTA

my preference Rustichella d’abruzzo Pasta di Semola di Grano Duro Spaghetti min 9-11 [1]

making the meatballS and
sauce

Either with a machine or by hand, mix everything together. Using a 4cm round scoop form the meatballs, and fry them in EVO until they are browned and sealed.

for the sauce
Put everything except the basil into a large ovenproof pan, add a can of water and simmer it gently to infuse the parmesan rinds and continue cooking and stirring until you have a sauce consistency.

Add the meat balls.

preheat the oven to 180°C
Put the meatballs and sauce in the oven and set a timer for 20 minutes. When the timer goes stir over the meatballs and set a timer for another 20 minutes.

To this point can be done in advance.
If you are freezing them four meatballs per portion is plenty.

to serve

Reheat the meatballs over low heat, adding a little water from time to time to keep the sauce at the right consistency.

Cook your pasta, drain, reserving a little of the pasta water, add the pasta to the meatballs and cook stirring over until it is coated with sauce. Tear the basil into the pan, stir over and serve.

cook's notes

Freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano can be a personal preference but not really required.

[1] Don’t buy cheap pasta. As it happens the more expensive pastas give a better cooked weight than the cheap. They are made with quality flours and semolina and are drier meaning the hydrate to a greater extent than cheap pastas and work out at about the same cost per cooked weight.

PICTURED ABOVE THE OVER PROCESSED MEATBALL MIX, MORE LIKE OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH SAUSAGE MEAT…..I’LL BE USING THE DOUGH BLADE NEXT TIME.

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MEATBALLS andSPAGHETTI