Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs
An easy, comforting one-pot meal
Spaghetti and meatballs is something that I don’t eat very often, but when the craving strikes, I’ve got to have it.
Usually, my go-to meatballs are oven-baked pork and ricotta meatballs. But when I want the convenience of cooking the whole meal in one pot at the same time, I turn to Instant Pot spaghetti and meatballs.
Something magical happens in the pressure cooker that melds all the flavors in this pasta dish together. The spaghetti soaks up the flavor of the sauce, rather than just being coated by it. The meatballs are tender and flavorful.
Although meatballs always take a little bit of time to make, this is a fairly quick and easy recipe.
Step 1: Mix and roll the meatballs. You can use my simple recipe for ground beef meatballs, or use any of your own favorite meatball recipes. You can even use pre-cooked store-bought meatballs to make life easier.
Step 2: Set the meatballs in the Instant Pot.
Step 3: Break spaghetti noodles in half and lay them in a cross-hatch pattern over the meatballs. This helps all of the noodles fit into the pot and prevents them from sticking together as much.
Step 4: Pour in a jar of marinara sauce and 2 1/4 cups water.
Step 5: Cook for 8 minutes at high pressure, quick release. Gently stir in the cooked noodles with a fork to separate any that have stuck together. Let the noodles and sauce rest 5 to 10 minutes before serving. During this time the spaghetti will soften a little bit more and the sauce will thicken up.
For all the details, check out the full recipe on Kitchenskip.com. Any and all questions you could possibly have about cooking spaghetti and meatballs in your Instant Pot will be answered there.
Dinner Last Week
I’m always curious about what other families are eating. Aren’t you? Here’s what my crew ate last week.
Monday: Tofu tacos, Mexican-style rice (a recipe for the delicious crumbled tofu that we use in tacos is coming to paid subscribers next week!)
Tuesday: Falafel, from the new Smitten Kitchen “Keepers” cookbook, plus pita bread, shredded cabbage, hummus and easy cucumber yogurt sauce.
Wednesday: Red lentil veggie burgers, Trader Joe’s frozen French fries. I’ve made dozens of homemade veggie burgers and still haven’t found one that I love. If you have a good veggie burger recipe, let me know in the comments section!
Thursday: I’m working on an Instant Pot pork chop recipe and my first attempt was so-so. The downside of being a recipe developer is that you (and your family) have to eat the early versions of recipes that aren’t so great. We also had pappardelle pasta and roasted yellow squash and mushrooms with our over-cooked pork chops.
Friday: Pan-seared tilapia with butter and garlic, steamed potatoes and broccoli. We dropped by our neighborhood Farmers’ market before dinner, so we also munched on crunchy carrots that tasted like they’d just been pulled from the earth and had sweet ripe strawberries for dessert.
Cookbooks
The Food Lab is more of a reference book than a cookbook, although it does have lots of recipes. There are 900 pages of tips, techniques and obsessively tested recipes that explain the science and the “why” behind cooking everything from steak to mac n’ cheese to garlic bread and potato salad.
If you love to cook (or are trying to learn how to become a better cook) and you loved Encyclopedia Brittanica when you were a kid, this book is for you.
Sore Throat Week, the Never-Ending Saga
I know you’ve all been eagerly awaiting this week’s installment of “Who’s Sick in My House” and it turns out that the winner loser is my husband. He somehow managed to get covid, so the poor guy is dragging through the week, alternating between working from home and napping.
Although I don’t feel sick (yet) I do have a completely random ear infection that requires laying on my side for 20 minutes, twice a day, for 7 days while ear drops soak in. I’m trying to appreciate my 40 minutes of forced rest every day instead of resenting it. I’m using the time to rest my eyes, or listen to a podcast or watch our cat roll around in the sun, or read the book I just started (Search, by Michelle Huneven).
To sum it up, things aren’t great, but they’re not completely terrible either, which seems to be the theme of 2023.
I hate to end on a negative note, so here’s a cat photo. Hope you all have a good weekend filled with fun and at least one long nap.
Jenny
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