Beef Meatballs with Roasted Tomato Sauce

There is something incredibly satisfying about a bowl of rich, saucy meatballs and spaghetti. The first time I made these was inspired by a Julia Ostro recipe - I was skeptical about the milky breadcrumbs part, but they seriously make the most tender meatballs! A great activity which can be done in stages and rested then thrown all together at the end. Also an ideal meal on the go, just make the meatballs smaller or break them up so they’re easy to eat.

Serves 4

Ingredients

Meatballs

1 large slice crusty bread

100ml milk

500g beef mince

2 stalks shallots or 1/2 onion

2 garlic cloves chopped

1 egg

1 handful basil

1 tsp chilli flakes

Sauce

4-6 tomatoes, quartered

1 onion chopped

~5 cloves garlic in skins

150ml red wine

2 tbsp tomato paste

Handful chopped basil

Large handful baby spinach

4 serves of pasta

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150°C. In a roasting pan combine tomatoes, onions and garlic cloves with a drizzle of oil and salt and pepper. Bake for 1½ - 2 hours until soft and browning.

2. Soak bread in milk for 10 mins. Squeeze out excess milk and crumble bread between fingers.

3. Combine breadcrumbs with mince, shallots, garlic, egg, basil, chilli flakes, salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate the meatball mixture for 30mins.

4. Heat a frypan over medium heat with oil. Roll teaspoons of meatball mixture into balls and cook in batches until browning on all sizes. Rest meatballs on a plate.

5. Meanwhile, cook pasta in salted water as per packet instructions, reserving some pasta water.

6. Remove tomato mixture from oven. Squeeze garlic cloves from their skins, discard skins, and mash the mixture with a potato masher. Blitz half the tomato mixture in a blender until smooth and return it to the rest of the tomato. For a smooth sauce blitz all the tomato mixture.

7. Deglaze frypan from meatballs with wine. Add tomato mixture along with tomato paste and once warmed add basil and spinach. If sauce is too thick, add ½ cup of pasta water. When sauce combined and spinach has wilted, add meatballs to the sauce to warm through. Be careful when stirring to ensure meatballs do no break apart.

8. Serve meatballs on top of pasta with parmesan.

Tractor Snacks Tip

This can be made as a large batch and frozen. Freeze raw or cooked meatballs on a lined tray and transfer to ziplock bag once firm, and sauce in a container. To cook, add meatballs to frypan on medium heat with some oil to brown, then add to warmed sauce as in original recipe. Simmer with lid on and allow some extra time particularly if cooking from raw. Alternately you could bake them or reheat with sauce in covered crockpot in oven. Cooked meatballs can also be frozen with the sauce, just be careful when reheating not to break apart meatballs when stirring.

Omit milk for dairy free option.

Follow @TractorSnacks on Instagram for more recipes and meal ideas.