Grape jelly is a taste from my childhood I’ll never lose, so when I saw this recipe for Grape Jelly Meatballs made in my other favorite thing in the whole world, my trusty crockpot, I could not believe my luck, I had to make them immediately and luckily I had just enough time to make this flavorful extravaganza happen in time for dinner. The directions were ever so easy and I always keep frozen meatballs on hand from Costco or Sam’s Club and you know I always have plenty of my delicious grape jelly on hand, because I can’t live without that! The ingredients were so simple as well, I knew this recipe was going to be a slam dunk win for my family’s taste buds.
Ingredients:
- 32-ounce bag frozen fully-cooked meatballs or homemade meatballs (see recipe below)
- 1 (10-ounce) jar of grape jelly
- 1 (12-ounce) jar of chili sauce
Directions:
Once you have your meatballs, whether frozen or homemade meatballs ones ready and browned, add them to the crockpot with a jar of grape jelly and a bottle of chili sauce. If you are using frozen, there is no need to defrost them. Stir. Then cover crockpot and set it on low, cooking this mixture for 4 to 6 hours, Alternately, you may cook on HIGH for 2 to 3 hours.
Then your meatballs will become succulent and glazed after 4 to 6 hours in your trusty crockpot with all the extraordinary flavors cooked into absolute perfection, yum!
If you would rather have Homemade Meatballs, here is an absolutely delicious easy recipe to make them.
How to Make Homemade Meatballs
Ingredients for Meatballs
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 2/3 cup finely minced onion
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (for frying the meatballs)
Instructions
To make the meatballs:
• Add the ground beef, ground pork, bread crumbs, onion, milk, Worcestershire, and egg and mix these together in a large bowl, Next, add salt and pepper to this mixture. Use a large spoon or hands to mix thoroughly.
• Form this mixture into one inch balls, rolling these into your hands until rounded. We like to make ours bite-sized, but you can use any size you like. Just remember that these will shrink a bit in size when cooked, so make them slightly larger than what you want.
• Before the meatballs can be added to the crockpot mixture, they need to be cooked first. You can bake them in the oven or saute them in a pan to get them brown and cooked through.
To fry the meatballs:
Over medium-high heat, add some vegetable or canola oil to a frying pan. Cook the meatballs in batches, as you don’t want to overcrowd them in the pan. Each batch will cook for about 5 minutes, but they need to cook until they are browned on all sides. You should check the internal temp with a meat thermometer and they should be 155 on the inside to be done. Continue cooking batches until all meatballs are browned.
I hope you enjoy this delicious meatball recipe as much as my family has!