Delicious Meatball Casserole

Delicious Meatball Casserole

Pasta Lovers, This way, please! A sumptuous casserole of pasta with homemade meatballs covered in your favorite pasta sauce as well as a yummy cheesy white bechamel sauce.

Delicious Meatball Casserole

Ingredients:

For Meatballs

• 600 gms Minced chicken
• ¾ cups finely minced onion
• ¾ tsp finely minced ginger
• ¾ tsp finely minced garlic
• ½ tsp  pepper
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp lime/lemon juice
• 4 Tbsp finely chopped parsley + more for garnish
• 2 large slices of white bread soaked in water
• 6 tsp grated mozzarella
• 1 egg, separated
• 4 tsp butter softened
• Oil for frying

For Bechamel Sauce

• 3 Tbsp Butter
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 1 ½ cups milk
• ½ tsp nutmeg, powdered
• 2 oz cream cheese (we use SCS or Philadelphia)
• ½ Tbsp garlic, finely minced

Other

• • 1lb Ziti or Penne pasta
  • 1 Jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce
  • 1-1 ½ cup shredded Mozzarella

Method:

For Meatballs

• Saute the onion, garlic, and ginger in very little oil till golden.
• Squeeze out all the water from the soaked bread slices. Press against a sieve or strainer to do so.
• Reserve the egg white for dipping.
• To the rinsed and drained mince, add the sautéed ingredients, pepper, salt, lime juice, chopped parsley, mozzarella, soaked and squeezed bread, egg yolk and butter
• Combine well with hands and form into meatballs. Dip each ball in egg white.
• Shallow fry in a skillet turning once, till golden. Drain. Do not fry too long or meatballs will be dry.

Pasta

• Cook the pasta in salted boiling water as per instructions on package but few minutes short. It should still have some bite as it will be cooked again while baking. Drain. Preheat oven to 350ºF/167º C.

Bechamal Sauce

• In a small sauce pan, melt the butter (do not burn).
• Add flour and stir  make a roux -thickened and cooked.
• Add the milk and whisk well till there are no lumps. Stir till thickened.
• Add salt and pepper grated nutmeg, cream cheese and garlic. Stir and remove from heat.

To Assemble

• In a large ovenproof casserole dish, Make the following layers starting from the bottom:
• half the jar of spaghetti sauce.
• half the meatballs in this
• half the cooked pasta
• all of the bechamel sauce.
• rest of the pasta
• rest of the spaghetti sauce.
• half the mozzarella.
• rest of the meatballs.
• rest of the mozzarella.
• Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Allow to rest for 15 minutes.
• Serve.

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