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These meatballs are INCREDIBLE!!! Like, actually life-changing. Thank you for sharing!! I love your recipes, especially the sugar-free ones!
Heather L
This recipe is sponsored by Land O’Lakes
Hi! Happy day!
There is a pasta combination of epic proportions happening in my life right now. It involves butter and garlic and herbs and fresh greens, which then gets tossed with thick pasta and the most ridiculously good chicken meatballs, which finally gets sprinkled with parm and squeezed with lemon. YES. It’s simple. It’s a total deliciousness bomb. It’s like spaghetti and meatballs got a spring makeover – you get the comforting, satisfying, not-messing-around texture of spaghetti and meatballs with some lightness (thanks to fresh spinach and chicken) plus a little extra pop and brightness from the lemon and garlic and butter.
You need to get down to business with this.
Here’s how this garlic herb spaghetti magic happens.
First: bake your meatballs. This is so easy that I will probably eventually dedicate an entire post to it. One bowl, no cutting board, just mix and roll and bake.
Then, you get your sauce going.
Sauce is a little bit of a loose term here – I would not say that this is the sauciest of all the pastas ever made, but that’s good. You don’t really want it to be. It’s meant to be light, fresh, and just saucy enough to help it all slip together effortlessly.
A sauté pan with a stick of creamy, melted Land O Lakes® Butter (always! it’s the good stuff) and a little fresh garlic, lemon zest, and some fresh greens are going to give you juuust enough of a shy sauce to coat all your noodles and meatballs to light, buttery, silky perfection.
Like so.
I like to add a little splash of water or white wine (preferable!) to the pan at the end to help the butter really stick to everything and carry the flavor into every bite.
And, naturally, a squeeze of lemon on top and a fancy dusting of Parmesan is necessary.
Fork twirl in three, two….
Watch How To Make Our Garlic Herb Spaghetti:
Garlic Herb Spaghetti with Baked Chicken Meatballs
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
Garlic Herb Spaghetti with Baked Chicken Meatballs is SO GOOD! lots of lemon, butter, parsley, and a handful of Parmesan. Yum!
Ingredients
Baked Meatballs:
- 1 pound ground turkey or chicken
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (optional – makes meatballs more moist and yummy)
- 1/2 teaspoon each garlic powder and onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- black pepper to taste
- additional seasonings optional (I added a pinch of this Go-To seasoning from What’s Gaby Cooking)
Garlic Herb Pasta:
- 8 ounces spaghetti, linguine, or cappellini (regular or whole wheat)
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) Land O Lakes® Butter
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 3–4 ounces fresh spinach, chopped
- about a cup of fresh parsley, chopped
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
- 1/4 cup water or white wine (more or less as needed)
- a squeeze of lemon juice, salt, and pepper to finish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix all the meatball ingredients until well combined. Roll into 30 small balls. Place on a baking sheet lined with foil and sprayed with oil to prevent sticking. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Melt butter in a large, deep pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and lemon zest. Sauté for a few minutes (don’t brown the garlic, but get the butter going so it’s a little bit sizzly).
- Add spinach and parsley and cook until just wilted.
- Add pasta, meatballs, and Parmesan. Toss to combine. Add water (or white wine) as needed to loosen it up and make it a little more creamy. Add seasoning to taste – including a final squeeze of lemon! Stand over pot, eat forkfuls of pasta, and repeat. ♡
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: garlic herb spaghetti, chicken meatballs, spaghetti and meatballs
Thank you to Land O’Lakes for sponsoring this post!
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of easy pasta recipes. Check it out!
Going to make this tonight. Cant use Parmesan. Husband doesn’t like it: think it will be ok without?
Yes, it will be fine without!
I made this tonight and it was absolutely delicious!! My whole family loved it!
This is awesome! I cut everything down since I was just making it for me using some of your chicken meatballs that I had frozen. Plus I added some grape tomatoes just because …..
Very good and I’ll make again! Thanks for a great recipe!
Absolutely delicious! Nice and light for a hot summer night. Did I mention it’s October? I used Trader Joe’s chicken meatballs, and put them in the air fryer at 390 for 8 minutes. We like a little kick to our pasta, so we added red pepper flakes at the table.
easy and delicious! I made the meatballs the day before, they were EXCELLENT in or out of the sauce.
This is one of my all-time favorite POY recipes. Two notes though: no matter how many times I’ve made these meatballs (which is easily over a dozen) they are done cooking closer to 15-20 mins and get overdone and burned if I go the full cook time (this is through 3 moves, so not an issue with my oven). Secondly, maybe the grocery stores here in the PNW measure differently, but there is no way to get 30 meatballs out of a single pound unless your meatballs are about a teaspoon’s worth of meat. I usually just get 12-15!
Could you omit the parmesan? Or substitute goat cheese? I’m dairy free for a nursing baby but this looks too good to not try!
I just made this recipe and I’m typing as I eat! It’s delicious and everything I could ever want in a simple pasta recipe. The only issue I had was the cheese and spinach sort of clumped together in the end making it a little difficult to eat. Any suggestions to prevent this next time?
Easy & insanely delicious! Thanks for yet another fave in our rotation
Simple and delicious. I used baby spinach and next time will chop. It ended up clumping with the other ingredients and not mixing well with the pasta so we separated it with forks like pulled pork to incorporate it with the pasta. Will make again!
if the garlic flavor is too strong you can try a different kind of more delicate garlic: aglione della valdichiana
This was amazing! My kids ate it up too which is unheard of.
This was a big hit at my house! Husband and 4 yo loved it. The meatballs were tender and juicy, so flavorful. I used 1/2 the amount of butter and it came out great! Will be adding to the rotation.
Yum yum and yum!!!!
I put a little bit more garlic and onion powder for the meatballs, they came out flawless!!! pasta was amazing too, could do with a little less butter though, had some left on the pan
these chicken meatballs are now a staple in my dinner rotation. i will never make chicken meatballs another way!! thank you from me and all my friends i’ve shared this recipe to haha.
Another winning meal from POY. I had ground turkey on hand and used a 1/4 measure to make jumbo meatballs. I used half of the suggested amount of butter and subbed in margarine and it tasted lovely!
I’m looking to make this dish a bit healthier. If I wanted to leave out the butter, how much olive oil do you think I should use? Thanks!!
Hi Caroline! You could try 1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil and add more if needed.
Ohmyyum!! Once again an incredible recipe! I did half the recipe..
#cookingforone ha and omg i could eat it all!! Seriously winner winner chicken dinner.
A definite keeper. In fact my folks are coming for easter weekend and I’m putting this on the menu!
So glad you enjoyed it, Tricia!
This is a family favorite – we make it often. I have just a couple notes for anyone trying to make it:
– I don’t see where the wine is used in the recipe. I normally add it after the greens have wilted.
– I normally get 18 meatballs out of 1 pound of turkey and they are done around the 15 minute mark. I recommend you pull them out and check their temperature after 15 minutes and cook more if needed. Maybe chicken takes longer but mine are around 175 degrees after 20 minutes and a little dry.
These are THE BEST meatballs ever! We haven’t gone back to beef since making these – thank you!
Awesome, Van! Glad to hear it!
So delicious!
This was so delicious!
This recipe reminded me of a dish my niece brought back from Italy called Oli! Oli! The dish has dried red pepper flakes so I added some to this recipe. It was wonderful! Thank you for this recipe.
Delicious! Yield is more like 20 meatballs Unless you are making them the size of grapes!
OMG it’s soooo tasty!!! Cooked it yesterday and now I want it for every day! Amazing dish!
Glad you enjoyed this, Katya!