Meatball pasta bake
Rich chilli, garlic and tomato meatballs baked with penne, mozzarella and parmesan for a satisfyingly delicious pasta bake!
10 mins
50 mins
535 kcal
10 mins
50 mins
535 kcal
SERVES
6
DIFFICULTY
EASY
SERVES
6
Difficulty
EASY
Ask any of my old flatmates the dishes that they most remember me for, and I think they would probably say ‘meatballs’! I’ve always loved cooking them (and eating them!). Meatballs and spaghetti was the first meal I ever made for my now husband (although that was a total disaster, I added a whole scotch bonnet chilli and it was HOTTER THAN THE SUN!) , he was so polite and sat and ate it all, the sweat pouring down his face!
My old ‘classic’ meatball recipe had an incredibly rich sauce, olive oil, cocoa powder, lots of tomato puree, sugar! I’ve pared it back these days as meatballs are still completely delicious even with an angelically healthy sauce. You probably know by now that I’m all for time-saving in the kitchen, and nowadays I always just blend all my sauce ingredients together raw, and then simmer them to save on chopping! I have a food processor that does all the work for me, but if you don’t have one you can always use a hand blender.
This only has 3 ingredients in the sauce (if I’m doing it for the kids I leave the chilli out), but it tastes amazing. I think one of the reasons for this is that you whizz the garlic raw into the tomatoes rather than pre-frying it, so that flavour just spreads sweetly throughout all of the sauce.
I have kept the meatballs here as basic as they get (ie just meat- no added breadcrumbs or seasoning), as the sauce has so much flavour that you really don’t need to mess around making fancy meatballs!
You can use any type of mince, pork, beef (or a mix), or turkey. Equally I keep meaning to try this with veggie balls make from either courgette or aubergine- watch this space!
I always use penne or rigatoni for this meatball pasta bake, I just think they work best (ie: looks best!), but really you can use any pasta you have!
Love meatball recipes? I have more! check out
Harissa and herb Moroccan meatballs
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Meatball pasta bake
Ingredients
- 500 g 5% fat beef mince
- 2 tins chopped tomatoes
- 5 cloves garlic peeled
- 1 whole green chilli stalk removed (leave seeds in if you like extra hot, I do)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 400 g penne pasta
- 250 g mozzarella
- 30 g grated parmesan
- basil and red chilli to garnish
- Cooking spray or spray oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180c. Make up the meatballs by simply rolling the mince into walnut -sized balls. Fry them in a non-stick frying pan (using either low calorie cooking spray or spray oil)on a high heat for 5 minutes.
- To make the sauce, use a hand-blender or a food processor to whizz up the tomatoes, garlic and chilli. Blend until completely smooth and then season with salt and pepper.
- Transfer the sauce to a saucepan, bring up to a simmer and then add the meatballs (once you have fried them for 5 minutes)
- Simmer the sauce and meatballs gently for 30 minutes
- While the sauce is simmering, cook the pasta for 12 minutes, drain, and then rinse through with cold water to prevent it getting sticky.
- Once the sauce has cooked for 30 minutes, stir the pasta through and spoon it all into an oven proof dish.
- Tear up the mozzarella and space evenly over the top, and sprinkle over the parmesan. Add some more black pepper on top.
- Bake for 20 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown on top. Serve up with basil torn on top, and chopped red chilli sprinkled over.
