Garlic Herb Spaghetti with Baked Chicken Meatballs is SO GOOD! lots of lemon, butter, parsley, and a handful of Parmesan. Yum!
Garlic Herb Spaghetti with Chicken Meatballs
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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
Scale
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!
May 3, 2018
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
Did you make a recipe? Tag @pinchofyum on Instagram so we can find you!
Vavvv. It seems very nice. I want to make this. Thanks
looks great! love that with a few tweaks (almond flour in the meatballs and using zoodles instead of pasta), this could be low carb as well.
quick question: any reason to use plain water instead of reserved pasta water to loosen the sauce?
The pasta water has starches that came off the pasta itself that helps the sauce thicken and become more “saucy”!
This one look just as good as date night mushroom fettuccine, shall try it also.
Looks delicious! I am definitely going to try this recipe – every recipe I have ever tried from your website has been a winner! Howeverrrrr….I am not sure I want to use a whole stick of butter, what would you suggest as an alternative? Olive oil and butter combo? Also, I made your gnocchi last night for the gazillion time – we LOVE it so much! My kids don’t like pumpkin (I know, right?) so I substitute the pumpkin with spinach and kale that I steam and puree….yummy!
I cut the butter in half and no one noticed it was missing. Still delicious.
I do the same! I think the Parmesan cheese helps keep the flavor tasty using less butter.
I made it the 1st time with the whole stick of butter and it was to much butter. Cut it in half the 2nd time and didn’t notice the difference.
Def going to make this tonight! The only change I would make is to reserve some of the pasta water to add to the sauce, rather than using tap water.
Looks amazing! For those of you that are trying to cut out “bread” you can use crushed almonds instead of breadcrumbs in the meatballs! It works really well and gives the meatball a little crunch! So delicious! I did this with Pinch of Yum’s “Mini Meatballs with Romesco and Chimichurri” recipe.
Thanks for the tip, Taylor!
Wow this has made me super hungry!! Love it (:
This looks yummy. Can’t wait to try this recipe.
This looks absolutely amazing! Pasta dishes seem to always be a hit!
Can’t wait to try those chicken meatballs!! 🙂
They really are the best!
Hello, Very nice recipe. I want to try it and yes I will try this recipe in my restaurant. Thanks for the share. Have a look at once here https://www.aashirwadrestaurant.com/.
Wow! It’s looking so tasty and delicious.
This looks so tasty! I love a simple pasta dish and the meatballs look like such a great addition to it. Looks like more than just a pinch of yum to me. A handful of yum? Perhaps a gaggle of yum?
OH, for sure! 🙂 Thanks for the comment, Ben!
It’s like you knew that I have been craving a pasta dish. A fresh light pasta dish. I don’t know how you knew…
This looks awesome, I love how easy the meatballs are, and the flavors are amazing!
Thanks, Danielle! Hope you enjoy it!
Soo good it’s making me hungry!!!
I love the pasta! Very unique take on the meatballs! I also cook alot and make sure that my recipes are healthy, simple yet delicious. You can also check https://ssl.clickbank.net/order/restricted.html?errCode=accntstate&cbhopvendor=fitcooking for other healthy take on our beloved meatballs!
Such a wonderful flavor with all of these seasonings. My family loved this. I will definitely make this again .
nice, another pasta dish for my day off diet and even and idea to tweak it with zucchini noodles when I’m not, love the meatball tweak to the traditional recipe, thank you
This seems like such a bright and clean dish. I often find that pasta meals end up feeling very heavy but that’s not the case at all. Love your photography too, as always.
printed this to make tomorrow! Will use whole chicked thighs destroyed in food processor!
I seems delicious, will update on review tomorrow.
I’ve always wanted to try to make meatballs, but for some reason I thought it was difficult. I followed your recipe and it was super easy–and delicious! Thank you for helping me get over my meatball-making fear!
Looks absolutely delicious!
Made this recipe today and it was quite delightful. Mad with myself for forgetting the olive oil in my meatballs! But will definitely make again…plus it was super easy!
Wow, these just looks the best meatballs ever! I’m looking forward to making and eating them all!
Hope you enjoy them!
Wow! That’s looking so tasty. I will try to make that.
In Gstaad .natural gem of the Saanenland.