Ingredients :

• Ground beef — Go for 15% fat, no less. Using 5% fat results in dry, dense meatballs. The fat melts during cooking and is what keeps the inside juicy. 500g for 4 people is the right baseline.
• Breadcrumbs — They absorb the moisture from the egg and hold the meatballs together without making them heavy. Fine store-bought breadcrumbs are perfect. No breadcrumbs? Stale bread coarsely processed does exactly the same job.
• Marinara sauce — A good store-bought jar with a short ingredient list — tomatoes, garlic, herbs, olive oil. Avoid versions with too much added sugar, which you’ll see in the first few ingredients. A good purchased marinara is well worth the time it saves on a weeknight.
• Spaghetti — Number 5 or number 7, your choice — one cooks in 9 minutes, the other in 11-12. What matters: respect the time on the package and taste 1 minute before the end. Al dente should be felt ‘to the tooth’.