Meatballs recipe for 6 (4 children, 2 adults) people, takes only 30 mins; recipe has pork sausage, beef mince, onion, carrot, oregano, parmesan, egg, olive oil, olive oil, courgette, garlic clove, tomato puree, caster sugar, red wine vinegar, chopped tomato and spaghetti.
Cooking with kids: Spaghetti & meatballs with hidden veg sauce
Course: Meatballs
Servings
6 (4 children, 2 adults)
servings
Prep time
15 mins
Ingredients
- Garlic Clove: 3 garlic cloves, finely grated
- Parmesan: 50g parmesan, finely grated, plus extra to serve
- Spaghetti: cooked spaghetti
- Olive Oil: 1 tbsp olive oil
- Onion: 1 small onion, coarsely grated
- Chopped Tomato: 2x 400g tins chopped tomato
- Egg: 1 medium egg
- Carrot: 1 carrot, finely grated
- Courgette: 1 courgette, coarsely grated
- Oregano: 1 tbsp dried oregano
- Tomato Puree: 1 tbsp tomato puree
- Caster Sugar: pinch caster sugar
- Beef Mince: 500g lean beef mince
- Red Wine Vinegar: splash red wine vinegar
- Pork Sausage: 300g good quality pork sausage (about 4 large or 8 chipolatas)
Directions
- Children:Squeeze all the sausage meat out of the sausage skins into a large bowl and add the mince. Tip all the rest of the meatball ingredients, except the olive oil, into the bowl and season with black pepper then squish everything together through your hands until completely mixed. Keep an eye on younger children to make sure they don't taste any of the raw mix.
- Children:Roll the meatball mix into walnut-sized balls and place them on a plate - this is a job children as young as 2 can help with and a great job to help teach older children basic division.
- Grown ups:While the children are rolling the meatballs make the sauce. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the courgette and garlic and cook for 5 mins until soft and mushy. Stir in the tomato puree, sugar and vinegar leave for 1 min then tip in the tomatoes and simmer for 5 mins. If your children like courgettes then you can leave the sauce chunky. But if, like mine, they hate courgettes then blitz the sauce with a hand blender - either way continue to simmer sauce gently while you cook the meatballs. If your child is confident with heat, from 7+ they can cook the sauce with supervision.
- Grown ups:Heat the oil in a large frying pan and, working in batches, brown the meatballs on all sides then pop them into the sauce - continue to simmer the sauce for 15 mins, stirring very gently until the meatballs are cooked through. Serve with cooked spaghetti, extra grated Parmesan and a few torn basil leaves your child has picked and torn.
