I just love spaghetti – it’s so delicious, especially when it’s spaghetti with vegan meatballs in a rich tomato sauce. It has to be organic wholemeal though for a truly nutritious meal. I never understand why people want to eat white pasta. It’s nutritionally very inferior, it’s rubbery, and pretty tasteless – so completely mad if you ask me. Check up on this link on why wholemeal is so much better for you here.
I first make a super tasty tomato based sauce with added courgettes, basil, onions and spices. That’s the fundamental basis of the dish. Then just cook some wholemeal spaghetti – organic is best – check link for the reason. Make sure it’s still a little al dente for the best texture and taste. Cooking the vegan meat balls from frozen in an actifry is the easiest way. I like Linda McCartney or Plant Pioneers, but there are loads to choose from.
I also mix in some red or green pesto into the spaghetti with gives it a nice tangy taste. Spread a generous spoonful of the sauce on top of the spaghetti and arrange 4 or 5 meatballs on top. Last thing is to grate some vegan parmesan cheese on top of the spaghetti with vegan meatballs, and add a bit of black pepper. Alternatively another way is to put the cooked meatballs in the sauce before you serve it. This makes the meatballs more succulent and tasty.
This sauce is really easy to make in bulk, and that’s what this recipe is intended to be used for. Make loads, portion it up & put it in the freezer.Then you can get it out any time you want vegan meatballs with spaghetti. You can use the same rich rustic vegan tomato sauce in other dishes. It goes very well with fusilli and extra veg and Linda McCartney sausages chopped up. You can also serve it as an accompaniment to various types of pie or even with my Tofu Wellington.
Tomato sauce for spaghetti & meatballs and any pasta dish.
Ingredients
- 5 kg vine tomatoes
- 2 whole bulbs garlic
- 1 kg yellow onions 2 large
- 500 g courgettes optional item
- 4 whole onion stock cubes
- 100 g of basil you could easily put 200g in though.
- 2 tbsps Herbes de provence
- 50 g Olive oil you may need a little extra.
- 2 tbsps Balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsps Soya sauce
- 200 g tomato puree
- 1 jar jar sundried tomato paste
- 1 tbsp Veg stock
Instructions
- Sautee the tomatoes in 1.25kg lots in Actifry or a wok with the herbs de provence for around 20mins per lot.
- Fry the onions and garlic in a wok until quite tender.
- Cut the courgettes into narrow short strips sauté in the Actifry for 15 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes into a large pan and roughly mash to break up the lumps – but not too much as you don’t wasn’t tomato ketchup!
- Then add all the rest in together – with stock and other ingredients and cook off in the oven. 150°C for around 45 minutes.
- portion into 250g lots in take-away containers for the freezer.
