Simmer sauce meatballs

Rolling meatballs is SUCH a pain. It’s probably the kitchen task I hate the most. And yet, meatballs are the sh*t and everyone in the family loves them. This recipe in particular was a big time winner that I would make all the time if it weren’t so tedious to scoop and roll, scoop and roll, scoop and roll…over and over again while getting raw meat all up in my ring and fingernails.

Luckily, Stonewall Kitchen tikka masala simmering sauce made up for the lost time. Obvs this is not sponsored or anything because I don’t even have a photo of the jar. Whoops! But you can google it to figure out which one it was.

I used the first half of the jar when I made chicken tikka masala a while ago, but it was the second time I used it that really wowed me.

These meatballs had both ground beef and ground pork and since I cooked them on the stove (rather than baking them in the oven) they didn’t get overcooked or dry out.

It’s definitely easier to bake meatballs when you are making enough for a full family, but they really are better when you make your life a little harder and cook them in batches in a skillet.

I combined both the tikka masala simmer sauce and coconut milk to make a creamy rich sauce – half to cook the meatballs in, and half to add to the finished dish.

You can see a lovely puddle of it in the bottom of the bowls, just under the rice.

I also added (what I THOUGHT was) a bunch of spinach to the skillet at the very end, but it wilted into what looks like 3 leaves. 😛

So silly.

Anyway, this sauce is bonkers good when combined with coconut milk. Plus the meatballs were cooked to perfection – super tender and juicy. So the whole dish was met with rave reviews.

Do I ever make duds of meals? I don’t know?! My kids (and Kyle) aren’t at all picky and loooooove to eat, so they are generally big fans of whatever I make. I would say 4-5 times a week they note how much they love a particular dish (whatever we are eating at the moment) and request that I make said meal again. That’s pretty much the highest praise because like I said, they really eat everything. Sure, there are some snoozers, but they will happily gobble up a broccoli and tofu stir fry just as eagerly as they will a bowl of meatballs. To my own credit, I keep things pretty diverse, so it’s not like they are getting sick of seeing pasta for days in a row…although I doubt they would mind that either!?

The real question I should be asking myself is why am I not using more jarred sauces? They certainly help meals come together far quicker. And yet, I never think to go down that (pantry?) section of the grocery store. Maybe it’s because I typically meal plan from cookbook recipes (which means I’m cooking food from scratch). Or maybe it’s because P had all those allergies and that basically prevented me from buying anything pre-made for half a decade and I just forgot that such things existed?? Kinda thinking out loud here…

Whatever the reason, I should probably remember this for the future. If anyone has any pantry products they love, feel free to pass them on!