Vegan Meatballs Made From Tofu!

A Family Classic! Make your own vegan meatballs, otherwise known as Tofu Balls & Spaghetti – totally simple and totally delicious! Join vegan Chef Tracy Childs on #LunchBreakLIVE while she shows us how to make one of her vegan fam’s comfort-food favorites. Tracy, the co-founder, and director of Tracy’s REAL Foods, Veg-Appeal, and PlantDiego, is changing thousands of people’s palates with her tasty food products, nationally! And she sure knows her way around the kitchen.  Let’s see how it’s done…

A Wealth of Health and Knowledge

Tracy is a super passionate healthy food advocate who fully embraced a plant-based lifestyle after first becoming vegetarian as a teen, then vegan as a young adult. She’s dedicated to spreading the message of how plants & lifestyle choices can heal the planet, protect animals and help us avoid needless suffering from lifestyle-related diseases.

She is co-founder, chef, and director of Tracy’s Real Foods a whole-foods, plant-based company that ships healthy Goodies nationwide.  She’s a certified Nutritional Consultant and holds a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from eCornell. Tracy has also taught nutrition and cooking for over a decade as a Food for Life Instructor, certified with the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine. As the Founder and Director of Veg-Appeal in San Diego, she offers healthy cooking classes, corporate wellness, individual & cooking lessons, store tours & personal health coaching.  Tracy is also the Founder and Director of PlantDiego, a San Diego-based nonprofit “PlantPure Pod” inspired by the movie PlantPure Nation to educate and support people in living a healthy, whole-food, plant-based lifestyle. She loves sharing healthy food tips so much she’s a frequent contributor, filming live cooking demos for #LunchBreakLive on Facebook with the Jane Unchained News Network. In addition, Tracy is a cookbook contributor!  She contributed over 100 recipes for the book by —David Kater:  Handbook to Higher Health Consciousness and has a new one coming out this fall by Glen Mercer called “Food is Climate.”

Vegan Meatballs?  Yes, There are Many Ways To Have Vegan Meatballs!

This takes the traditional recipe for Spaghetti and Meatballs that many of us grew up with to a much healthier level while still maintaining the delicious taste we remember. It’s also very simple to make.   Did you ever think you could use tofu to mimic meatballs?  Well, you can, and it takes very little effort while providing an abundance of flavor and texture in the finished dish!  

See Also

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Tofu Balls and Spaghetti

This takes the traditional recipe that many of us grew up with to a much healthier level while still maintaining the delicious taste we remember. It’s also very simple to make.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Dinner, Lunch

Cuisine Italian

Ingredients

  

• INGREDIENTS Tofu Balls and Spaghetti:
• 1 14 ounce package firm or extra firm tofu
• 8 ounces spaghetti of choice cooked
• 1 small onion chopped
• Water or vegetable broth to sauté
• 1 large tomato chopped
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 4-6 cloves garlic chopped
• 1 tablespoon sliced kalamata olives with a little brine
• ½ tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 2 tablespoons julienned sundried tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon Bragg Aminos or tamari soy sauce optional
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 small can tomato paste
• ½ cup water or more as needed
• Nut Parmesan garnish
• Fresh basil garnish
• Nut Parmesan Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds or other nut/seed of choice (or a mix)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions

 

• METHOD TOFU BALLS:
• Heat a medium saucepan or skillet and dry sauté the onion adding splashes of water or broth as needed to avoid burning, but keep it pretty dry at first to get a nice browning. Add the chopped tomato, sliced mushrooms, garlic, olives + brine, Italian seasoning, sundried tomatoes, Braggs, and balsamic vinegar. Bring to a boil while rapidly sautéing, then cover and reduce the heat.
• Meanwhile with a melon baller, scoop out ball-shaped pieces of tofu until the tofu is too small for more, then break the rest of the tofu into small irregular-sized pieces. Add them immediately to the pot. Gently fold in the tofu and cover again to simmer and infuse the tofu with the flavors for about 10 minutes.
• Add the tomato paste and additional water as needed and gently incorporate it into the sauce without breaking up the tofu balls.
• If you have time, allow this mixture to sit off the heat, covered for up to an hour before serving to infuse the tofu with the flavors.
• Divide the pasta onto individual serving plates and ladle the sauce on top.
• Sprinkle each serving with Nut Parmesan, garnish with fresh basil and serve.
• METHOD NUT PARMESAN:
• Add all ingredients and blend to grind.
• Remove to a container and store in the refrigerator
• CHEF’S NOTE: You can use almond flour or meal as a sub for almonds and skip blending, just stir them together in a bowl or jar.

Keyword vegan

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Thanks For Joining Us For Lunch

Time for a big family dinner with Spaghetti and Vegan Meatballs made from tofu!  So much yum in every bite and sure to become a new family favorite at the table.  Go ahead and give this recipe a try and let us know how you liked it.  Take a photo of your finished dish and tag @UnChained_TV on Instagram.  Looking for other easy plant-based recipes to cook up?  Hop on over to the #LunchBreakLIVE page, where we have a ton to choose from.  Until next time…keep cookin’!