Spaghetti and meatballs is the ultimate comfort food. There’s so many ways to make this recipe your own with many variations. This recipe includes baking the meatballs instead of frying them as well as using marinara sauce for a quick dinner turnaround!!
Marinara Sauce
If you love making your own marinara sauce, check out my recipe for homemade marinara. I usually make a double batch of it and store it in the refrigerator. That way I have enough to make pasta dinners like lasagna or this spaghetti and meatballs.
And if making homemade marinara it’s not in the cards, then a store bought jar will do just fine too. Pick your favorite flavor as they come in classic, basil, garlic etc etc.
Homemade Marinara
You can make your own marinara using tomatoes or canned tomatoes and few other ingredients. You won’t regret it:).
Meatballs
Often times, authentic Italian recipes call for half ground beef and half ground pork. I have tried cooking the meatballs that way and they do come out really amazing.
However, here’s my problem. I buy ground beef in a 6-7 lb package from Costco and separate it in 1-2 lbs smaller ziplock (freezer safe) and store the ground beef in freezer that way.
It’s just not always possible to go shopping for two different types of meat, when you already have one in the freezer. That’s why my recipe is only with ground beef, but feel free to actually do half and half if you have access to both.
Let’s cook dinner!
At this point let’s assume you have marinara sauce, either store bought or homemade.
Add ground beef, finely chopped onion, minced garlic, breadcrumbs, parmesan, herbs and eggs in a bowl. Mix and chill for 15 minutes for flavors to mix if you have enough time.
Create meatballs and place them over parchment paper or aluminum foil lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes then broil for another 10 (or air fry). Please try to not overbake the meatballs as they still need to simmer.
In a deep skillet, saute finely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil. Add the marinara sauce when onion is translucent. Lower heat so sauce doesn’t splatter.
Once meatballs are baked, use a slotted spoon to remove them carefully from baking sheet and add them to the skillet with marinara sauce. Cover them with sauce and let simmer for about 15 minutes and cook the spaghetti in a separate pot during that time.
How To Serve Spaghetti and Meatballs?
Well, let me start by saying that one of my kids wants me to serve pasta on her plate, then add a ladle worth of meatballs with sauce on top. She wants to mix it herself in the plate. So I prepare her plate first before mixing anything!
The rest of the family likes the spaghetti to be lathered in marinara sauce in the saucepan, get all the flavors together in the pan! So I mix the rest!
Again, I’m not trying to go for authentic here, just trying to put dinner on the table:).
Love serving this dish with some garlic bread and salad. A glass of red wine for grown ups is a great pairing too! Simple, easy and a great dinner. Enjoy!
Sonila’s Pro Tips
Here are some extra tips that have helped me, maybe you’ll find them useful too.
- If using stale bread instead of breadcrumbs, soak the bread and squeeze it with your hands.
- You can double the amount of meatballs, shape them all and freeze the extras for another dinner in the future. It helps with meal planning. I do the same with marinara.
- You can use other meatballs recipes if you are trying to switch things up: mint meatballs or za’atar meatballs or turkey meatballs are some of my favorite alternatives.
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Equipment
- 1 Strainer for pasta
- 1 Pasta tongs
Ingredients
Simmering Marinara
- 3 cups marinara sauce homemade marinara or store bought
- 2 tbsps olive oil
- 0.5 yellow onion
- 2 garlic cloves
Meatballs
- 2 lbs ground beef or 1 lb ground beef and 1 lb ground Italian sausage
- 0.5 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup breadcrumbs or stale bread
- 0.5 yellow onion
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
- 5 leaves fresh basil
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 0.5 tsp black pepper
- 0.5 tsp crushed red pepper optional for some spice
Spaghetti
- 8 ozs spaghetti
- water
- salt
Instructions
Meatballs
- In a medium glass bowl add ground beef, parmesan, finely chopped onion, garlic, chopped basil leaves, Italian seasoning, eggs, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and crushed red peppers.
- Mix with your hands until everything is incorporated. Let chill for 15 minutes or so in the refrigerator if you have time, if not start shaping the meatballs one by one right away.
- Add the meatballs to a baking sheet, place parchment paper or aluminum foil underneath. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes then switch to broil for another 5 minutes or so.
Simmer Marinara
- Add olive oil to a deep skillet, medium heat. Once it shimmers, add finely chopped onion and minced garlic. Saute until aromatic and then add marinara sauce. Lower heat so sauce doesn't splatter.
- If desired you can add some basil leaves intact for added flavor and aromatics, but it's optional. Remove after few minutes.
- Add the baked meatballs to the sauce and let simmer with the marinara sauce. Turn them gently every few minutes so they cook evenly and get coated with the sauce. Let them simmer at least 15 minutes or so. Turn heat off.
Cook Pasta
- Fill up a pasta pot with water, add salt, boil then add spaghetti in and cook al dente according to package instructions. Drain pasta.
- You can mix spaghetti with meatballs and marinara sauce using tongs. Or you can serve spaghetti topped with meatballs and sauce individually.
- Add more basil, black pepper and parmesan as desired in each individual plate. Buon Appetit!
Notes
- Meatballs vary in size, but usually I plan 4 per person when they’re on the smaller side or 2 big ones. If you change the size, make sure you bake them properly first.
- I usually estimate 3 cups of marinara for 4 servings of spaghetti. Anywhere from ½ to ¾ cups of marinara per person.
- Adjust salt and pepper to your taste.
- If using seasoned breadcrumbs, adjust seasonings for meatballs so you don’t over season.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
If you would like to use this recipe to make dinner one night, just save one of the pictures of this post to your boards in Pinterest. It’ll make retrieving the recipe a lot easier:).
Please let me know in comments if you have any questions or if you make a different variations of this recipe:). There’s so many good recipes for spaghetti and meatballs and I’m thankful you took a look at mine.
More Pasta Dinner Recipes
Here are some of my other pasta recipes:
- Roasted Red Pepper Pasta with Ricotta
- Chicken Pasta Bake
- One Pot Orzo with Spinach
- Pasta, Sausage and Spinach
- Gigli and Peas
- Bucatini Cacio e Pepe
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