Spaghetti Cheapballs
Whilst exploring the blogosphere, I’ve noticed a bit of a trend when reading other people’s posts about food. The three things that come up quite regularly are that food should be: 1) cheap; 2) quick, and; 3) easy to prepare. A couple of years ago, I came across a recipe for Spaghetti Meatballs in a Women’s Weekly cookbook. What’s so special about this recipe, I hear you ask? Well, instead of making the meatballs from scratch, the meatballs are made from the meat in sausages. How clever is that? And if you use bottled pasta sauce or passata, then you are saving a whole heap of time and money; the two things that are very important to me now that I’m a Uni-bum. This recipe can easily serve four people in about 25 minutes.
Spaghetti Cheapballs
2 tsp olive oil
500g good quality beef/pork sausages
1 jar pasta sauce (I used Leggo’s Bolognaise, 575g)
500g dried spaghetti
Chopped parsley and parmesan to serve (optional)
Bring to the boil a large saucepan of water. Once the water is boiling add a little salt to the water and cook the spaghetti according to the packet’s instructions.
Whilst the pasta is cooking, remove the casing from the sausages and combine the meat together using your hands. Roll the meat into balls using about a tablespoon of meat.
Heat the oil in a fry pan over medium heat and cook the meatballs for about 5-6 minutes until browned all over.
Add the pasta sauce, bring to the boil then turn the heat down and simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until the meatballs are cooked through. Have a bit of taste and season if required. If you have used seasoned sausages, you won’t need to season the sauce as the flavour from the meatballs will do that for you.
Add the pasta to the sauce and toss to combine. Divide everything equally between four pasta bowls, and serve with a bit of parsley and parmesan.
So, how much money did I spend to make this meal for four people? The pasta cost $1.99, the pasta sauce cost $2.99 and the sausages cost $4.76. That’s a total of $9.74 or approximately $2.44 per serve. BARGAIN!
Note: I have amended the original recipe slightly. The original recipe is on page 98 of The Australian Women’s Weekly Super Fast Recipes cookbook.
thecookingchook 
YUM. They look great 🙂
Thanks Gary! 😀
This looks great! I love using sausage in pasta sauces, but I’m even lazier and just brown and crumble it instead of making meatballs. I love meatballs and gravy over rice, and I wonder how that would taste with sausage. I smell a new recipe! Oh wait, that smell is my Indian takeout, but I will experiment with sausage meatballs soon. Thanks!
Ha ha ha! Meatballs and gravy over rice sounds yummy. I might have to give that a go with sausage meat too!
I made the sausage meatballs and gravy tonight, and it turned out really good! I’m going to put them on the menu this weekend, and I will link to you as my inspiration of course 🙂
I love hearing about people trying the recipes that I’ve tried and loved, so thanks for letting me know. I’m more than happy for you to include it on your menu. Everybody needs to know about how great (and simple) this recipe is 🙂
Hehe is this really bad but this is how I’ve made it for ages because I’m basically quite lazy when it comes to some meals! 😛
Not bad at all! It’s always nice to have a stash of recipes that you can make really quickly, especially when you’re in a lazy mood.
And then you’ll get the person at dinner who goes ‘MMM I love this, what did you add to the meatballs?’ Hahahaha 😛
Yeah – that’s the risk you take, huh? It’s especially tricky now that my friends know that I have a foodie blog; there’s this weird perception that I’m a great cook when in actual fact I’m just really good at following recipes and finding ways to cheat!
So true! All my friends know I’m obsessed with my blog these days. Now even if I’m just having a mom over for a playdate, I feel like I should have some delicious food to offer. I’m actually a pretty lazy cook who has plenty of recipe flops. I just don’t usually write about those!
Looks so easy and delish. I have to give this recipe a try.
When I read the headline, all I could think about was an OLD episode of Roseanne where she cooked a meat loaf, and added everything remaining in her cupboards – including M&Ms, except meat. Meatloaf surprise as it were.
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