Italian meatballs with pasta

This recipe requires preparation in advance!

A quick and easy meatball recipe. Serve with buttered pasta and a tomato sauce. It's ideal for freezing, make double the quantity and freeze in small batches for extra quick meals. This has to be a cheat because it's so simple to make.

Italian meatballs with pasta

Servings:	Serves 4
Calories per serving:	956
Ready in:	4 hours 25 minutes
Prep. time:	4 hours 15 minutes
Cook time:	10 minutes
Difficulty:
Recipe author:	Chef
First published:	23rd October 2012

Best recipe review Basil is just the best! 4.7/5 The meatballs are great, but the finishing touch is the fresh basil. The Judge

Ingredients

Printable 🖨 shopping 🛒 list & 👩‍🍳 method for this recipe

• 500g (18 oz) lean minced beef
• 1 tablespoon freshly chopped oregano - see variations
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 Cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• zest of 1 lemon, finely chopped
• 15 g (1/2 oz) fresh breadcrumbs
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch of grated nutmeg
• 1 egg, beaten

for frying

• Olive oil

to serve

• 520 g Buttered spaghetti or buttered egg noodles
• 30 g Parmesan cheese - shaved with a speed peeler or freshly grated

Method

1. In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients with clean hands until nicely combined.
2. Cover and refrigerate for 3 or 4 hours if possible for the flavours to mix.
3. Divide the mixture into about 20 balls, roughly the size of a golf ball.
4. Gently shallow fry in a little olive oil until browned on the outside and cooked to your liking. About 5 to 7 minutes, turning regularly - scrape from the pan with a spatula to prevent them breaking up.

• 

  20 Italian meatballs

• 

  Mixed, ready to chill

• 

  Meatball ingredients

Serving suggestions

Serve on a pile of buttered pasta or egg noodles and one of these tomato sauces

Garnish with shavings of Parmesan cheese.

Variations

Use pork instead of beef.

Try an Alfredo sauce instead of a tomato based sauce.

Use fresh basil as an alternative, or a mixture of basil and oregano (or marjoram), if using dried oregano, use 1 teaspoon. Don't bother with dried basil.

Chef's notes

I forgot to buy the lemon for this recipe, so used slightly less than a quarter of the rind (flesh discarded) from one of my preserved lemons, finely chopped.

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