Easy Slow Cooker Meatballs

This is one of those recipes that is so adaptable that rather than creating several recipes, I chose to make one post with several options. That way you can decide which recipe suits your event or what you have in your pantry to make with them. 

If you prefer to make your meatballs from scratch, go for it. I love having a gluten free option that I can start at lunch and they're ready at dinner. You can serve your meatballs over rice, gluten free noodles or with mashed potatoes. To make things easier, we buy pre-made Main Street Bistro mashed potatoes from Costco when we're serving mashed potatoes.

Course: Appetizer/Party food/Main Dish
Source:  Bemmes Family
Preparation time: 5-10 minutes
Cooking time: Varies

Ingredients

16 oz or more of meatballs (we typically use 32 ounces)
 

See below for additional ingredients

Tools

Slow cooker – 4 quart or larger

Slow cooker liner – for easier cleanup but not necessary, so if you have issues with them, don't use them

Spoon for stirring and serving

Frying pan (if making gravy)

Whisk (if making gravy)

Directions

Place the meatballs in the slow cooker and cover with seasonings and sauce.  Cook on low for two or more hours.

Notes

Meatballs are incredibly versatile, especially if you buy the homestyle rather than Italian versions. The following are several very simple to more challenging options for cooking meatballs.

Simple meatballs and gravy - For years after going gluten free, I really missed gravy, but I finally found King Arthur's one for one measure gluten free flour, and I can have gravy again. Woohoo! 

The recipe for the meatballs and sauce is so simple. Place the meatballs in the slow cooker, add 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder and 1 tsp of pepper before adding one 32 oz box of stock. Adjust the amount of seasoning to taste, adding pepper flakes if you like a little kick.

If you prefer chicken meatballs and chicken stock, beef meatballs with beef stock or even impossible meatballs with veggie stock, you do you and adjust your seasonings to taste and your dietary needs.

At the end of cooking, add 2-4 tablespoons each of butter to a medium frying pan and melt over medium heat. Add an equal amount of flour, 2 tablespoons for thinner gravy and 4 for thicker gravy and cook for at least 2 minutes to cook the raw taste out of the flour. Stir constantly with a whisk to keep the mixture, called a roux from scorching and/or burning.

After 2 minutes, start adding the meatball liquid into the roux one spoonful or ladle at a time and stirring constantly with the whisk. At first, it will look terrible, and you may think you've ruined the gravy, but trust me, keep stirring, and things will smooth out.

As that happens, add more liquid until the gravy is a bit thicker than you want it. Then add that back into the slow cooker and stir. Voila! You have meatballs and gravy!

Italian – Cover with one jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce.  To create a richer sauce, combine the sauce with a 15 oz. container of ricotta cheese before pouring over the meatballs. Ten minutes before serving, sprinkle with Mozzarella, Parmesan or Romano cheese. 

Barbecue - Cover the meatballs with two bottles of your favorite barbecue sauce.  You can make any number of variations with flavors like combining a spicy sauce with a honey barbecue to have a sweet and spicy sauce.

Chili sauce and grape jelly – While some things seem to go together naturally, some things don’t make sense until you try them.  For this recipe, you’ll want to mix a jar of chili sauce (think ketchup with some horseradish similar to a cocktail sauce) with a small jar of grape jelly.  If you’ve never tried it, it might sound gross, but fortunately we ate these before we knew what we were eating, and they were delicious.

Swedish – This recipe is just a bit more complicated with its sauce, but it is definitely worth the effort.  For the sauce you will need:

2 cups Beef Stock

1-2 tbs Minced Garlic

1 stick of butter

3 oz Tomato Paste (half of a small can)

2 tbs Beef Concentrate (Can also use demi-glace or a product called Better than Boullion)

1 cup Sour Cream or Plain Greek Yogurt

8 oz. of Cream Cheese 

1-2 lbs. Meatballs (not Italian style)

In a small frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat then sauté the minced garlic for about one minute.  As soon as the garlic begins to bloom/give off an aroma, begin adding in the tomato paste and beef concentrate.  These ingredients mix best with a whisk.  Remove the mixture from the heat.  In a separate bowl, soften the cream cheese for 10-15 seconds in the microwave until it mixes with the whisk.  Mix until smooth with the sour cream or Greek yogurt. 

When combined, add the mixture from the frying pan and mix until smooth.  Add in the beef broth ½ cup at a time, mixing in between to create a smooth and thick sauce.  Place the meatballs in the slow cooker and pour the sauce over the meatballs.  Cook on low 4-6 hours and on high for 1-2 hours.  If you choose to cook on high, stir the meatballs every 15 minutes so the sauce doesn’t break.

*Sauces with a dairy base containing milk, yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese and regular cheese can lose their consistency when cooked at high temperatures.  Once a sauce loses that consistency or “breaks”, it is almost impossible to bring it back together, although you can try to rescue the sauce with a slurry.  A slurry is a mixture of a liquid and a thickener, most often flour or cornstarch and water, milk or broth.  To rescue the sauce listed above, 1 tablespoon of flour or cornstarch per 2 ounces of liquid would be the ratio to try to thicken the sauce back up.  For a single batch, listed above, 2 tablespoons of thickener and four ounces of liquid might work.  To make the slurry, place the thickener in a bowl and add the liquid one ounce at a time, missing thoroughly between additions so that the slurry is smooth and without lumps.