Spaghetti & Meatballs – Vegan MoFo Day 2!

Day two of VeganMoFo today! Today’s prompt is What’s your go to “impress me” meal? I don’t often cook huge impressive spreads, especially now I only have a small kitchen, but I think this meal is pretty impressive. Spaghetti and meatballs is a classic taste combination, and great for serving to crowds as you can just make a load of spaghetti, a load of sauce, and a load of meatballs, and people can help themselves.

I make the sauce by pulsing the ingredients in a food processor. This chops them all up nice and small and helps to bind everything together. I also fry the onion and garlic before I put them in the food processor – again, I feel like the softened onion helps to bind the meatballs.

Once the mixture is pulsed, I just form it into balls, fry on all sides, and serve with my spaghetti and sauce. The sauce is a simple one made from fresh and tinned tomatoes and some herbs.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

• Servings: 11 meatballs worth
• Print

Ingredients

• 180g spaghetti (or as much as you need)

For the Meatballs

• 75g TVP
• 200ml boiling water
• 1 tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp marmite
• 50g breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped

For the Sauce

• 300g cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• Salt + Pepper to taste

Directions

1. Begin by frying your onion and garlic until softened. Remove from the pan and place in the bowl of your food processor.
2. While the onion and garlic are frying, in a bowl mix together the TVP, marmite, and boiling water. Leave aside to rehydrate.
3. Add all the meatball ingredients to the food processor, including the TVP mixture. Pulse until thoroughly combined.
4. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Fry the onion and garlic until softened, and then add the cherry tomatoes, salt and pepper, and herbs. Fry for 5 minutes until the tomatoes begin to wilt.
5. Add the can of chopped tomatoes to the sauce and continue to simmer while you finish preparing the meatballs.
6. When the meatball mixture is a sticky dough-like consistency, form into ping-pong size balls and place in a preheated frying pan, turning regularly, until golden on all sides.
7. While the sauce and meatballs are cooking, boil the spaghetti in a pan of salted water.
8. Once the spaghetti is cooked, drain, and stir through the tomato sauce. Serve with meatballs on top!