Veal Marsala Meatballs are light and flavorful with their Tomato Basil Cream sauce over pasta. Serve this with white wine and crusty bread to sop up all that lovely sauce.
I love to find things on sale, especially things that would usually be expensive, like ground veal.
I love cream. Why do I love cream? One of the reasons I love cream is because you only need a little, and it stays fresh in the refrigerator for quite a long time. I also like it for those occasions when I have run out of milk for my coffee. I prefer milk.
That’s what happened to me this morning, I ran out of milk last night, and not wanting to the store unwashed, I used a little cream in my coffee. I’ve had that cream in my house for quite a while, and I knew today was the very last day to use it.
When we were at the supermarket today, someone was buying red sauce for spaghetti. That almost sounded good, but I wanted to use up what I had in my refrigerator. No problem, I thought, I can make spaghetti and meatballs, but use the veal, and make the sauce with the cream.
Let’s Make Veal Marsala Meatballs
If you have had Veal Marsala, these Veal Marsala Meatballs will remind you of that. It’s easy to prepare and the meatballs can be made ahead and even frozen so all you have to do is defrost them, heat them in the oven, make the sauce, and you’re good to go.
Veal has very little fat, so these meatballs are a good choice for those watching their weight. Omitting the cream makes the sauce another good low-calorie choice. If you have vegetarian friends, serve the meatballs separately.
If you cannot find pine nuts, you could substitute cashews or walnuts, but the pine nuts are preferred.
Try serving it with garlic bread made with freshly made butter.
Email Me the Recipe
Veal Marsala Meatballs and Tomato Basil Cream Sauce with Mushrooms
Equipment
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Ingredients
- 1 pound spaghetti, or other pasta
~~ For the Veal Meat Balls ~~
- 1 pound ground veal
- 1 tablespoon dehydrated onion
- 1 egg, slightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon Marsala wine
- ¼ cup frozen spinach, dried
- 1 tablespoon pine nuts
- ½ cup breadcrumbs
- 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
~~ For the Sauce ~~
- 1 teaspoon unsalted butter
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
1 teaspoon shallots in oil- 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
- 1 tablespoon minced basil
- 1 can tomatoes, diced in juice
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
- Extra cheese for serving
Instructions
For the Meatballs
- Mise en place.
- Line a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 300.
- Beat the egg slightly with the Marsala.
- Mix all the meatball ingredients together lightly. Do not work the mixture too much, or the meat will become tough. You can do it by hand, but the stand mixer does a much better job.
- Make balls using a small ice cream scoop, and put them on to the prepared pan.
- When all the balls are finished, put them in the oven and cook for about 15 minutes, or until the balls have slightly browned and they have reached an internal temperature of 145. At this point, you could refrigerate or freeze the meatballs to use at a later time.
For the Tomato Basil Cream Sauce
- Mise en place for the sauce.
- Put water on to boil with about a teaspoon of salt in it. Remove a little of the juice from the can of tomatoes and set aside.
- Sauté the garlic and shallots in butter in a large sauté pan until they are translucent.
- Add the mushrooms and sauté until they have browned a little and given up a little of their juice.
- Add the basil and let it cook a bit, stirring the whole time.
- Add the tomatoes and stir. Lower the heat and cook until the sauce has thickened a little, stirring occasionally.
- The water should be boiling, so add the pasta now.
- Add the cream and stir to combine. Let the sauce cook on low heat, stirring occasionally until it has thickened.
- Add the salt and cheese, and stir until the cheese has melted.
- Drain the pasta and put it into a nice large pasta bowl.
- Pour the sauce over the pasta, and top with the meatballs. You may garnish with extra cheese.
Rolo the cat here. I had the last of the cream. It was sooo good. I even liked the spaghetti. I didn’t like the tomato sauce though, it’s not good for cats.
This blog keeps getting better. Thanks for keeping it updated!
Thank you for the kind words. Those kids are so cute!
This is genuinely very good.