Veal Marsala Meatballs and Tomato Basil Cream Sauce with Mushrooms
This is a light, yet delicious pasta dish that will remind you of Veal Marsala.
Calories per serving: 366kcal
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.
Notes
For the meatballs, you can omit the pine nuts and spinach if you like.
For the sauce, you can use the nice frozen basil that comes in the little trays, or you can use fresh basil. Please don’t try to use dried basil. You can omit the cream and let the tomato cook down to reduce calories. You can also use olive oil for the mushrooms instead of butter if you are going to omit the cream.
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