Asian Spaghetti and Meatballs
11About a million years ago, I remember seeing a recipe Rachael Ray had for Chinese spaghetti and meatballs and, unlike her other meals with really weird combo titles (“stoup,” anyone?) it actually sounded pretty intriguing. Of course, I never got around to making anything like that until now because now I’m all about making pasta that does not have dairy which, let’s face it, is not easy. I looooove pasta and I love even more that it makes great leftovers. I’ve been seriously slacking on bringing my lunches lately because I feel like dinners with “the best” leftovers tend to have cheese in them (pasta and Mexican, namely). As a result, I’ve been making lo mein type dishes pretty frequently because they give me my pasta fix and reheat well, too.
I didn’t actually use Rachael’s recipe, since I had two recipes of my own I could fuse together. For the meatballs, I just used a riff on my Asian pork burger recipe and the sauce is similar to what I use in chicken lo mein (such lovely photos, both of them…). You can obviously use any vegetables you want in this. Carrots often end up in our version just because we always seem to have a bag in the fridge but I’m always partial to snap peas and peppers in Asian dishes. Really, you can’t go wrong with ginger and garlic in anything, in my personal opinion.
Asian Spaghetti and Meatballs
Meatballs:
1 lb. ground pork
1.5 Tbsp. low sodium soy sauce
1 egg
1/3 cup panko
2 green onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 Tbsp. freshly grated or minced ginger
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper
salt (very little since you have soy sauce) and pepper to taste
Pasta:
2 Tbsp. oyster sauce
1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
2/3 cup chicken broth
1 tsp. chili paste, like Sambal Oelek
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp. canola oil
1 lb. lo mein noodles
1 bunch green onions, sliced, green and white parts separated
1 red bell pepper, sliced
2 cups sugar snap peas, trimmed
2 cups oyster mushrooms, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. freshly grated ginger
1 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
Preheat the oven to 400 and line or spray a baking sheet with cooking oil. Lightly mix together all of the ingredients for the meatballs, and form into about 20-25 meatballs. Place on the prepared sheet and bake until cooked through, about 12-15 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook the lo mein noodles according to the package instructions. Whisk together the oyster sauce, soy sauce, chicken broth, cornstarch, and chili paste; set aside.
Heat the oil in a wok or skillet and cook the white parts of the green onions, peppers, snap peas, mushrooms, ginger, and garlic until peppers and snap peas are tender crisp (stagger your vegetable additions if you prefer some to be cooked more than others). Add the sauce to the wok and cook a couple minutes until it begins to thicken. Stir in the sesame oil, and then combine everything with the cooked lo mein noodles, and meatballs. Top with scallion greens.
I bet these are delicious!!! They look amazing!
I love this combo…it’s intriguing and looks lovely!
Rachael does have really off-the-wall names for her recipes, doesn’t she?
I love Asian twists on noodles! Though I totally see your point about dairy leftovers…will you get to eat dairy again soon??
Hopefully! Our pediatrician says most babies outgrow it around 6 months, and many as early as 4 – which we are quickly approaching. So, I plan to have a plateful of nachos with cheese and sour cream to test it out in the near future. 🙂
I love Asian-inspired dishes as a way to use up veggies in my fridge. I do the same as you in that respect. Whatever we have on hand, goes in.
This sounds delicious, Elly. I’ve been in a dinner rut lately, but this gives me hope. The meatballs look especially tasty (and your other two pictures aren’t that unlovely!).
This looks delicious!!! Love the asian inspiration!
Thoughts on how this would be with turkey instead of pork? We’re kosher, so no pork!
Beth, I’ve made the meatballs/burgers with ground chicken before and they are great – I usually like to use ground thighs for a little extra fat or a combo of breasts and thighs.
I am going to try this tonight for dinner. It sounds really good!