These slow-cooked sweet and sour meatballs are an absolutely amazing dish and well worth the time and effort involved in preparing them.
Slow Cooking Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Sweet and sour is one of my favorite foods. There are so many variations you can make. This recipe takes you through the steps to make a delicious meatball dish.
This dish seems pretty complicated because we have to make the meatballs and the sweet and sour sauce from scratch. You can always make this dish a little faster by buying pre-packaged varieties such as frozen meatballs or packaged sauce. The disadvantage of packaged food is that it doesn’t taste as good and usually contains a lot of additives.
If you have a little extra time towards the end of cooking, then you should try this dish with some rice, noodles or anything else you like to eat with it.
Sweet and sour meatballs with rice
Make sure you don’t throw away the leftovers, as they’ll warm up well the next day. It’s great if you need a quiet lunch or dinner. It should keep well for a few days in the refrigerator as long as it is stored properly.
If you want to see how to make this incredibly good recipe for a slow cooking dinner, be sure to watch the video below. It will take you through everything there is to know about preparing this dish and getting it into the slow cooker.
Ingredients
Meatballs
500g (17.5 oz) ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. garlic, crushed
1 cup of bread crumbs
1 egg
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper
Sweet and sour sauce
440g (15.5 oz) can pineapple chunks, unsweetened juice (Do not drain)
1 large red or green pepper, cut into quarters
1 onion, cut into quarters
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1 teaspoon ginger, crushed
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
4 tablespoons of ketchup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Thickener
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
2 tablespoons of water
Instructions
In a bowl, combine ground beef, chopped onion, garlic, egg, parsley, bread crumbs and season lightly with salt and pepper.
Roll the mixture into balls. (2 tablespoons of each should give a good size to the balls)
In a frying pan over medium heat, brown the meatballs and set them aside.
In the slow cooker, mix the brown sugar, ketchup, ginger, apple cider vinegar, pineapple juice and finally the soy sauce.
Add the meatballs, pepper, pineapple chunks, onion and carrot.
Simmer for 6-8 hours or over high heat for about 4 hours.
Just before serving, mix the water and cornstarch until a paste is formed.
Add the pasta to the slow cooker and mix until well combined.
Let it cook for about 15 minutes to help cook the cornstarch.
Serve and enjoy
Recipe tips
As with any type of slow cooking, it is not necessary to fry the meatballs before adding them to the slow cooker. However, you may notice a difference in taste and texture. The meatballs, in this case, may break if you do not brown them first.
You can add more vegetables to the sweet and sour sauce if you want to add more to this dish. Mushrooms, water chestnuts, are just a couple of great vegetables you can add to this delicious recipe.
If you don’t mind a super liquid sauce, then you don’t need to add the cornstarch. Unfortunately, one side effect of slow cookers is that they tend to be very soporific because the cooking method does not allow the moisture to evaporate.
You can change the meat mince to another type of meat. For example, pork or even chicken will go well in this dish, but it’s up to you.