Spaghetti and Vegan Meatballs

One of my favorite meals to eat is spaghetti. I had a real craving for this the other night, and figured I would take a crack at adapting one of my favorite meals to be vegan friendly!

Most noodles and pasta sauce are already vegan, so the hardest part of this meal was making the meatballs.

Here are some of the brands I used to make this meal:

To make the meatballs, here’s what you need:
-3 cups drained and rinsed chickpeas
-3 tablespoons ground flax
-8 tablespoons water
-1/2 cup breadcrumbs
-1/4 cup neutritional yeast
-1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
-2 tablespoons onion powder
-Salt to taste
-Italian seasoning to taste

First, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. We will be baking the meatballs in this recipe. Some recipes suggest pan frying them, but I thought baking them would be easiest.

To begin the meatballs, you will first stir together the ground flax and water in a large mixing bowl. Let this sit for about 5 minutes while you mash the chickpeas.

To easily mash the chickpeas, put them in a bowl and microwave them for about 10 seconds. Then, take a fork and push down on the chickpeas while draging the fork tongs hard against the chickpeas. I used a combination of the fork and a potato masher to mash the chickpeas.

Now, add in the rest of the meatball ingredients (breadcrumbs, garlic powder, onion powder, etc.) and mix well together.

Use a 1 tablespoon to shovel out the mixture. I recommend going slightly over 1 tablespoon to get the perfect meatball size. Then use your palms to roll them into balls.

Use a cookie sheet that is covered with tinfoil to bake the meatballs. Make sure you do spray the tinfoil with cooking oil so the meatballs don’t get stuck! (I forgot that part).

Let the meatballs bake for 30-35 minutes. Turn the meatballs over halfway through their baking time.

While those are baking, boil a pot of water, cook the noodles, and heat the sauce.

Once the noodles are done, the sauce is heated, and the meatballs have finished baking, you’ll need to grab a plate and combine all three things together. The last instruction….enjoy!