Is spaghetti better with or without meatballs?

[Anders S]

I'm going to make spaghetti in 2 weeks for a potluck, and I need to know if people like meatballs or not.

 

[nightsprinter]

Fuckin absolutely better with meatballs. But the meatball composition matters. No one wants a dense concrete meatball. No one wants a meatball that splinters into meat smithereens. There has to be the right amount of herbs, breadcrumbs, cheese, parsley etc mixed in to give them THE consistency and flavor. Some people like all beef meatballs. That's a damn hamburg nugget. It's gotta be either 50/50 beef and pork or 50/25/25 beef, veal, pork. If someone doesn't eat pork, fine, they get a pass on this.

Potlucks seem to be a one pot affair for the most part, but consider bringing a secondary pot/slow cooker for the meatballs in sauce so that people who don't want meatballs don't have to have them comingling with their pasta.

It's been a frustrating day and I'm probably being way too hypervigilant in this response but meatballs are a very serious thing for me.

Personally, I prefer hot Italian sausage (yeah, yeah) with my pasta overall, but meatballs are definitely up there in priority.

 

[jaxadam]

Linguini with pesto and pine nuts.

 

[profwoot]

A. with
B. This is a great first post. Have you lurked here for a while?

 

[jaxadam]

Pesto with linguini and pine nuts.

 

[SalsaWood]

You can neglect the meatballs for ground beef, that's what I usually do. It's not "correct", but I'm poor and not Italian.

As long as you include meat at all you're on the right track. Spaghetti without meat is practically a bad dessert in my opinion.

 

[TedEH]

Already been said, but +1 for it really depends on how good your meatballs are. Good meatballs will improve spaghetti. Awful meatballs will ruin it.

 

[spudmunkey]

How big is your potluck? You could make it both ways, to add a vegetarian option.