Life, with Clotted Cream
An ordinary life with a dusting of luxury.
Healthy Spaghetti and Meatballs
Spaghetti and meatballs is a classic dish. This version gets a healthy twist by adding spiralized vegetables
Have you ever watched Lady and the Tramp? Especially the scene where they slurp up the spaghetti? I love doing that: slurping up spaghetti. There is just something about spaghetti and meatballs that is just comforting. I always imagine myself curling up in front of a fire, lounging in my pj’s and eating this ginormous bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.
Problem is, not only is the pasta very filling, but my waistline also doesn’t agree with my mouth! So I had to figure out a way to keep the inches off, but with all the satisfaction of a great slurp – introducing to you the ‘half and half’, more healthy that the regular version, but just as satisfying.
We received a spiralizer as a wedding gift – brilliant little gadget! Turns any root vegetable into a spaghetti strand…
The meatballs packs an umami punch from the grated mushrooms and gives it a juicy kick from the grated courgette. Depending on how fine or how coarse your meat has been ground, you may want to add in an egg to bind the ingredients together. I find that most of the time the meat is ground relatively fine so there is no need for me to add in anything else.
If you like more of a smooth tomato sauce rather than a chunky vegetable sauce then you can just blend the ingredients after cooking and before adding the meatballs – it is equally as delicious!
Healthy Spaghetti and Meatballs
Ingredients
- Meatballs
- 250 g beef mince
- 1 small courgette or ½ large courgette, finely grated
- 5 button mushrooms, finely grated
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 100g button mushrooms, sliced
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 punnet cherry tomatoes, whole
- 2 medium carrots, grated
- a big handful of fresh basil leaves
- Sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 3 large courgettes, spiralized
- 100g spaghetti, cooked
Sauce
Spaghetti
Directions
- Meatballs
Pre-heated the oven at 200℃
- In a bowl, combine ingredients for meatballs and form little balls about ½ the size of a golf ball.
- Place on a baking tray and put in the oven for 10 minutes.
- In a saucepan, lightly fry the onion and garlic in the butter.
- Add mushrooms, carrots and cherry tomatoes and fry until the tomato skins have blistered.
- Switch off the hob and place a lid on the pan to let it sweat a little.
- Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions.
- Spiralize the courgette and add to the spaghetti one minute before it has finished cooking. Take a pair of tongs to gently combine the pasta and courgette after the water has been drained. Careful not to over mix as it can quite quickly become a soggy mess.
- Once meatballs have been in the oven for 10 minutes, take it out and place it in the pan with the tomato and onion mix. Make sure you pour any liquid also into the pan.
- Switch the hob on a medium heat and let the flavours mingle whilst you give the basil a quick chop before adding it to the meat mix.
- Serve the meatballs on top of the courgetti.
Sauce
Spaghetti
To Serve
It may seem like a lot of effort for spaghetti and meatballs, but trust me when I say: ‘it is delicious!’  The grated courgette makes the meatballs juicy and the mushrooms give it a slight earthy flavour.  The fresh basil at the end is the pièce de résistance!
For some more healthy recipes, check out these:
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Life, with Clotted Cream 
I LOVE zoodles!
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Same here – use them any time I can. 😊
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