Meatballs in a "Loaded" Sauce
Updated: Feb 25, 2021
There’s a lot going on in here that thickens this meal out, which I love, and you can really make it your own by including a whole range of different veggies of your liking to "load" the sauce.
Meatball ingredients:
500g grass-fed beef mince
1 egg
1 tablespoon of coconut flour or tapioca flour, plus more for dusting
2 pinches of sea salt
¼ teaspoon of black pepper
1 large garlic clove, crushed
2 teaspoons dried herbs of your liking (oregano, thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, mixed, etc.)
Other ingredients:
Extra-virgin olive oil or other cooking fat
700g bottle of passata
400g can of diced tomatoes
1 carrot, grated
1 medium zucchini, grated (I leave the inner core piece out)
½ cup of diced kalamata olives
Pasta (I use red lentil pulse pasta)
Method:
Place a large baking sheet on the kitchen bench, and put some of the coconut/tapioca flour ready to dust your meatballs
Mix the first 7 ingredients thoroughly in a large mixing bowl by hand
Begin forming the mixture into even-sized balls, roll in the dusting flour (don’t completely cake them; they should just be lightly dusted on the outside), then transfer to a plate
Repeat step 3 until there is no mixture left
In a large saucepan, begin heating the passata and tinned tomatoes
Heat the cooking fat in a seperate skillet on medium-high heat
Once the skillet is hot, cook the meatballs in batches until the outside is a nice, charred brown colour, then transfer the meatballs into the now simmering pasta sauce to finish cooking through
While the meatballs are bubbling away, cook your pasta according to the instructions
Add the carrot, zucchini and olives to the meatball mixture to cook through a little and add some flavour
Serve the meatballs atop your pasta, and sprinkle with some parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast!
Note: If you wanted to make this a lower carb recipe, you can serve with zucchini noodles.
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