Vegan Spaghetti Meatballs

Soft and flavorful inside, amazingly crispy outside, vegan meatballs served with rich tomato sauce and spaghetti pasta. Nick made me his favorite dish when he first moved in with me in Barcelona, deliciously spicy spaghetti meatballs. Since then, I have been making him the plant-based version of that dish. He loves it! 🤩

🍽 Serves 4-5

🕘 45-50 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 tsp olive oil

• 1 medium onion

• 3 cloves of garlic

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tsp – ½ Tbsp chili paste

• 1 tsp Italian herbs

• 1 tsp tomato paste

• ¼ cup vegetable stock

• 1 can lentils

• 1 ½ cups of brown rice

• 2 Tbsp corn flour

• ½ cup of breadcrumbs

• ¼ tsp allspice

• 1 tsp sea salt

• ½ tsp pepper

• Vegetable oil to fry

Sauce:

• Olive oil

• 1 medium onion

• 4 garlic cloves

• 1 Tbsp tomato paste

• ½ Tbsp raw sugar

• ½ Tbsp Italian herbs

• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

• 1 can of diced tomatoes

• 2 cups passata

• Fresh basil

Instructions

1. Prepare the ingredients: chop the onion, mince or dice the garlic.

2. Heat the oil on a frying pan to medium. Add onion and a big pinch of salt, stir and fry for 3 min. Add garlic, soy sauce, chili paste, tomato paste, Italian herbs, and fry for 3 more min. Add vegetable stock and mix well.

3. Move to a food processor and add lentils, cooked brown rice, breadcrumbs, corn flour, allspice, salt, pepper. Blend for approx. 2 min. Pulse a few times if there are still bigger pieces but the texture is meant to be quite chunky. Set aside and let it cool.

4. In a large saucepan, heat the oil to medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Fry until translucent and add, tomato paste, raw sugar, and Italian herbs. Stir well and fry for 3 min on medium heat. Add red wine vinegar, diced tomatoes and passata. Simmer for 10 min. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Cook pasta according to the packaging

6. In a large frying pan, heat vegetable oil to medium. (Enough to cover 1/3 of the meatballs). Shape balls out of the meatball mixture and place them in well-heated oil. Fry for 5 min, rotate frequently to make sure they fry evenly.

7. Place fried meatballs into the sauce and carefully stir.

8. Serve immediately – Place spaghetti pasta and pour the sauce with meatballs over the pasta.

9. Garnish with parmesan and basil.

10. Enjoy! 💚

Watch a short tutorial on Instagram