Creamy Stock & Herb Spaghetti with Meatballs
By Robin Tasker · Serves 5 · 45 min
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Soft baked meatballs and white spaghetti in a creamy onion-free stock sauce with thyme, parsley and a little Dijon — a gentler take on a creamy pasta, finished the way the pros do it.
This is the dinner I cooked the night I realised gentle food could actually be exciting. Instead of a tomato sauce, it's a creamy one built on onion-free stock, cream, a little Dijon and a handful of soft herbs — reduced down until it coats the pasta.
The trick that makes it taste restaurant-good: finish the spaghetti in the sauce, not in the water. You pull the pasta out just before it's done and let it cook the last minute in the sauce, so it drinks up all that flavour. Soft baked meatballs on top and it's a proper family dinner.
Ingredients
- Meatballs*
- 350 g beef mince
- 150 g pork mince
- 40 g breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 20 g parmesan, finely grated
- 1 sprig thyme, leaves picked (about 2 g)
- Sauce*
- 300 ml onion-free stock
- 150 ml cream
- 20 g butter
- 1 tbsp garlic-infused oil
- 10 g Dijon mustard
- 10 g parsley, finely chopped
- 15 g spring onion (green tops), thinly sliced
- To serve*
- 350 g spaghetti (white pasta)
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C. Mix the beef and pork mince with the breadcrumbs, egg, parmesan and thyme leaves, plus a little salt and pepper, until just combined. Roll into about 20 small meatballs, sit them on a lined tray and bake for 18–20 minutes, until cooked through and lightly golden.
- Meanwhile, make the sauce. Warm the butter and garlic-infused oil in a wide pan over a medium heat. Pour in the stock and let it bubble and reduce by about a third.
- Stir in the cream and Dijon and simmer gently for 3–4 minutes, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Stir in the parsley and most of the spring onion greens.
- Cook the spaghetti in salted water until almost tender — about a minute short of the packet time — then lift it straight into the sauce with a little of its cooking water. Toss over a low heat for a minute so the pasta finishes cooking in the sauce and drinks it up.
- Fold the baked meatballs through, scatter over the last of the spring onion greens, and serve.
Gentler swaps
Creamy without the onion: the sauce gets its savoury depth from onion-free stock and garlic-infused oil instead of onion and garlic. Reducing the stock first concentrates that flavour.
Finish in the sauce: pulling the pasta out early and letting it cook the last minute in the sauce is the single thing that makes it taste finished — don't skip it.
Dairy: the cream is what makes it luxurious; a part-stock, part-cream mix keeps it lighter if you'd rather.
For the family
Cook once — your gentle version, plus how to pep it up for everyone else.
Cook the one pan of sauce and the one tray of meatballs. Once your plates are served, stir a little crushed garlic, chilli flakes or extra Dijon through the rest of the sauce for the others, and finish theirs with cracked pepper and more parmesan — same dinner, yours is the gentle one.
Scores are modelled estimates, not medical advice. Everyone's gut is different, and tolerance changes over time. Reintroduce foods one at a time, and follow your own medical team's advice.