Beef Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Spinach

Meatballs are pretty versatile in terms of flavouring them! I love Sweet & Sour meatballs, here is a link to a post with a recipe for that…. This recipe for Beef Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Spinach is delicious & sure to become a fav of yours!

This recipe is with homemade tomato sauce. While the meatballs are cooking in the oven, I simmered a sauce on the stove.

We ate these meatballs with some packaged gnocchi that I quickly boiled then fried in a bit of oil. This isn’t a saucy recipe as a traditional spaghetti & meatball dish. The sauce is too thick for spaghetti!! I added some spinach to the sauce to up our vegetables….Murray is not a big fan of salads, but likes spinach so I add spinach to a lot of my dishes!!

Here is the recipe

Beef Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Spinach

Ingredients

Meatballs

2 pounds ground beef

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup ketchup

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp onion powder

1/4 cup bread crumbs

Tomato Sauce

1 can ( 796 ml) diced tomatoes

2 tsp dried basil

1 tbsp minced dried onion

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tsp salt

1-2 tsp sugar *** start with 1 tsp & taste to see if you think it needs more

1 cup frozen spinach

Method

Meatballs

1. Prepare a baking sheet by covering with aluminum foil
2. In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients for the meatballs together
3. Make meatballs by taking 2 tbsp of the meat mixture & forming into a ball, make it quite tight, not too loose & put them onto the prepared baking sheet leaving some space between the meatballs so they can cook throughly
4. Put into a 400f oven & bake for approx. 30 minutes . They will cook in the sauce as well but you want them to be brown, firm & pretty much cooked through. They should not be raw when you remove them from the oven because they will fall apart in the sauce

Sauce  

      Make the sauce while the meatballs are cooking

1. In a large saucepan, put the tomatoes & seasonings in & bring to a slow boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Taste & adjust the seasoning to your liking. I added 2 tsp sugar because I do not like my tomato sauce too acidic tasting & adding sugar helps that .. but you might not like the bit of sweetness, so that is why you should taste the sauce
2. Add the spinach & stir it in to defrost it & combine it with the sauce The spinach has a lot of water so it will thin the sauce a bit.

When the meatballs are finished cooking in the oven, gently remove them from the baking sheet & slowly put them into the tomato sauce. Cover the saucepan, make sure it is on a simmer& cook for another 30 minutes or so until the meatballs are completely cooked. Gently move the meatballs around a bit from time to time while they are cooking

Enjoy!

I took a package of potato gnocchi, put them into boiled water. While the gnocchi are boiling, heat a bit of oil in a large skillet.  When the gnocchi came to the surface I took them out of the water ( with a slotted spoon) & put them into the saucepan…the pan was hot… be careful when adding them to the skillet…. if you get water into the hot pan it will ‘spit & splatter”. I fried them up a bit & put salt & pepper on them

I also made some roasted asparagus to eat with dinner as well.