Spaghetti and Meatballs – Ninja Cooker Style @NinjaKitchen

This is not a sponsored post – I have tried to reach someone at Ninja with no success – but this I could not wait to show you.

We camp seasonally and often eat out when not cooking on the grill.  I was getting tired of eating out and definitely tired of spending that money unnecessarily.   And half the time my kids would rather eat the more kid type meals anyway.  A friend of mine recently purchased the Ninja Cooking System and I knew I just had to have one.  Besides when we are camping – I work many hours at work then of course blogging so spending hours cooking is definitely not something I wish to do.  I have plenty of crockpots and use them often but this is so much more.

In the Ninja Cooking System you can use it like a stove top, slow cooker or oven.  Since this isn’t an official review of the product – I will not go into great detail.  But there are many reviews on many sites and they are overwhelmingly 5 stars.  Maybe Ninja will see this and decide to give me one – then I don’t need to bring mine back and forth to the camper every weekend – I would love to have one at the camper and one at home.  Problems solved all the way around.

Today however, I will speak about spaghetti and meatballs.  Never has it ever been so easy to make a meal.  Granted – spaghetti and meatballs are not a difficult meal to begin with but this is pretty much “set it and go” type of cooking.  I don’t need to stand over it and make sure the noodles don’t boil over; I don’t need to warm up the meatballs separately – throw it all in together.

When you purchase the Ninja Cooking System you also get a cookbook (or at least I did) and this recipe is in there.  However, I can tell you I do it a little differently.

First I dump in a full regular size jar of spaghetti sauce – not the extra large jar.

Then I fill that same empty jar with water and pour it in – 1 1/2 jars worth of water.

Are you exhausted from all the steps yet?  Yup that takes about a full 30 seconds not counting your walk to the cabinet to get the jar.   Then take a pound of spaghetti and “plop” it in.  You can leave it whole or break it in half – no problem either way.

You can either cook from here or you can add meatballs.  Since Anthony is a huge fan of meatballs I added approximately 20 small frozen meatballs.

Put the Ninja Cooker on the OVEN feature, at 250 degrees for a half hour.  I did open it after about ten minutes to separate the pasta and stir it a little, then approximately ten minutes later to stir.  I will warn you that it is literally boiling and you can easily get burned with the splashing so be careful.

But the end result is awesome and easy – check this out.  Have a piece of buttered Chiabatta bread with it and enjoy.  My husband likes to add a little extra sauce to his afterwards but the rest of us like it the way it is.  And it is scalding hot so it takes a little while before it is cooled down enough to eat.

Yum!