When you think of a wholesome family dinner, spaghetti and meatballs is an obvious choice. The meal elicits images of mom slow-cooking sauce on the stove and rolling fresh meatballs, then happy kids slurping noodles. The problem is, this classic comfort food is actually far from healthy and wholesome. The noodles are void of nutritional content, the meatballs (probably made from red meat) should be eaten sparingly and the sauce (if store-bought) is full of sugar and sodium. To top it off, there’s no green vegetable in sight.
So what do we do? The first step is to start sneaking in vegetables wherever possible. Making your own pasta sauce is not difficult, it just takes some planning and time. Making a big batch of sauce and freezing portions or processing jars to store in your pantry will make dinner a breeze later. You can control the ingredients and even sneak in extra veggies—mushrooms add a meaty and earthy component, bell peppers and carrots are easy additions, as is spinach. Veggies make a great addition to the meatballs, too, and subbing in lighter chicken or turkey would help cut back on calories and fat. You can also freeze homemade meatballs after making a large batch.
I try to be adventurous in the kitchen, so when I came across a recipe (on Pinterest, naturally) for chicken-veggie meatballs and zucchini ‘noodles,’ I decided to give it a shot, with a few tweaks. Here’s how it went, and what I would do differently next time.
Reinvented Spaghetti & Meatballs
Chicken Veggie Meatballs
The recipe called for zucchini in the meatballs, but I had about 1½-2 cups of fresh spinach on its last legs, so I threw that in instead, along with some baby carrots, onion and garlic. I will tell you right here, I wish I had used roasted garlic instead of raw (I keep roasted on hand in the freezer for instant flavor boosts) and omitted the onion. Despite being baked and then in a covered dish, the powerful scent overwhelmed my fridge.
After pulsing the veggies in the food processor, I should have just mixed them by hand into the ground chicken, instead of throwing the meat into the food processor, too. I think the resulting texture would have been different, but they still turned out okay. Hindsight is 20/20! I also used regular flour instead of almond flour. The overall recipe is very easy, and they not only baked quickly but they also reheated well the next day and stayed moist.
Zucchini Noodles
I’ve been meaning to make these ever since I bought my mandoline (love you, OXO), because it has a julienne blade perfect for this purpose. It really couldn’t be easier to turn a zucchini into noodles, and after a 2-minute saute and a dollop of pesto, they’re ready to eat. Alternatively, if you salt the noodles and then let them sweat, they will become pliable and you can eat them raw—a great option for warm summer weather.
The Finished Plate
I dressed the noodles with my favorite store-bought pesto because I prefer it more than any I’ve ever made, and this particular Buitoni pesto not only has a short ingredients list, it also tastes amazing. The spinach-basil pesto recipe from the original blog looks delicious as well—I will attempt it next year when I have garden-fresh basil.
Another advantage of using pesto instead of red sauce is that a little bit goes a long way in terms of flavor. In the end, it’s all about balance, and this turned out to be an easy, truly wholesome, very green, delicious spaghetti and meatball dinner.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert or a nutritionist, just an avid reader of food books, magazines and blogs and an experimenter in the kitchen. All opinions are solely my own but have been researched.
