Spaghetti And Meatballs Pizza Recipe

What's better than a carby, delicious bowl of homemade spaghetti and meatballs? Homemade spaghetti pizza, that's what. It may seem a little out there, but putting your spaghetti and meatballs on top of your homemade pizza is actually pretty delicious. This is no quick and easy 30-minute meal. Between making the meatballs and sauce, cooking the pasta, assembling the pizza, and baking it all, you're looking at a more labor-intensive homemade pizza than you're probably used to. Of course, there are places you can take shortcuts, and I'll point those out along the way. That being said, if there's nothing you love more than a bowl of pasta or slice of pizza, this just might be your ideal, over-the-top, Instagram-worthy dinner.

First things first, you need to pull together all of the ingredients necessary to make your over-the-top meal. The meatballs combine pork with spices, panko bread crumbs, herbs, salt and pepper, cheese, and an egg to hold it all together. The sauce is more pasta sauce than pizza sauce, to go with the spaghetti and meatballs theme. Dried, store-bought pasta is best in this dish, as homemade noodles are too labor-intensive and too fresh to stand up well to the finished dish. Store-bought pizza dough is just fine (I like the refrigerated one that's sold at Trader Joe's), but you can also use your favorite pizza dough recipe. You'll find my full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions a the end of this article. 

Of course, if you want to go the really easy route, you can use frozen meatballs and a jarred sauce — but this almost from-scratch method is worth the work, I promise. 

Gather everything in one place so that you can work through each step of the recipe without having to stop and go searching for things. The French call this mise en place, which means "everything in its place."

Time to mix up the meatballs, because they'll have to take a little sit in the fridge before they're ready to be shaped and cooked. Add pork, egg, cheese, salt and pepper, parsley and basil, garlic, fennel and oregano, and panko bread crumbs to a medium-sized bowl. Mix it all together until the flavors are evenly dispersed. Put that in the fridge and get to work on your sauce.

Dice the onion and green pepper and mince the garlic. Put all of that in a medium pot with a bit of olive oil and let them sweat. Add the tomatoes and all the rest of the ingredients. Bring them to a boil then reduce it all down to a simmer and let it hang out for awhile so the flavors can develop and meld together.

One the meat mixture is nice and chilled, it's time to form the meatballs. Using a tablespoon, or tablespoon-sized cookie scoop, form the mixture into meatballs and set on a sheet tray until they're ready to be cooked.

Heat a bit of olive oil in a frying pan. You can use a large one and maybe cook them all at once, or a smaller one and cook them in batches — just don't let them get too crowded or they'll steam. Make sure they get nice and browned on each side, but don't worry about them being 100 percent cooked when you take them out of the pan. They'll cook a bit more when they're on the pizza baking in the oven.

Boil plenty of water and then salt it really well once it's already boiling. If you salt it before it boils, you risk some of the water evaporating and the water (and resulting pasta) being too salty. Don't be afraid to salt well, though, unless of course you have a medical condition that prohibits you from being able to do so (but then again, if you have to limit your sodium, this is probably not the right recipe for you). Cook the pasta according to the package, then drain it well and toss it in with the sauce.

Make sure your dough is basically room temperature when you start working with it. If it isn't, it may not hold its shape. Sprinkle a little bit of flour onto a piece of parchment paper that's been set on top of a sturdy cutting board — coat your hands with flour, as well. Using your hands, gently shape the dough to the desired size. When I work with fresh dough, I often go with a rectangular shape instead of a circle, but you can make yours any shape you'd like.

Melt some butter and stir in roughly chopped parsley and garlic powder. Brush that tasty mixture all over your prepared crust using a pastry brush. 

On top of your garlic bread pizza crust, put the spaghetti mixed with some sauce. Then, add your cooked meatballs, arranging them however you'd like. Top it off with a few basil leaves and some slices of mozzarella cheese (feel free to use shredded, if that's your thing) and it's ready to go into the oven.

Make sure the pizza stone or pan on which you're going to bake your pizza has been in the oven, preheating as the oven preheats. When you're ready to bake, carefully pick up the entire pile, including the sturdy cutting board. Walk it over to the oven, slide the oven rack containing the pizza stone out, and carefully slide the parchment paper off of the cutting board and onto the pizza stone. It's a little bit tricky, so take your time, there's no need to rush. Once you've successfully done that, close up the oven and cook your pizza until the crust is puffed, golden, and cooked through, and the cheese is melted, browned, and bubbly.