Cheap Meals: Crockpot Meatballs for Spaghetti

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Who doesn’t love a good meatball? Spaghetti and meatballs is classic comfort food, but many people find meatballs to be too much work. This recipe will take you about 20 minutes to put together –no frying, no roasting in the oven, just fix it, toss it in the slow cooker and forget about it.  In a few hours you’ll have some of the best meatballs and red sauce you’ve ever eaten.  The slow cooker caramelizes the sugars in the tomato sauce giving it excellent flavor and the meatballs are tender and flavorful. This recipe is not to be missed–you have got to try this!

Ingredients

-1.5 lb of ground meat (I like ground turkey) @ $1.50 (on sale)

-1/2 to 3/4 cup Parmesean Cheese @$0.75 (bought in bulk)

-1 egg @$10. (bought in bulk)

Dash of red pepper flakes @$0.10

1 tbsp garlic powder @$0.25

1 tbsp onion powder or actual diced onion @$0.10 (bought in bulk)

2 18oz to 24oz jars of spaghetti sauce @$2.00 (on sale)

Your choice of pasta @$1.00

Note: I don’t use bread crumbs. You don’t really need them, but if you feel weird skipping the bread crumbs, feel free to add some in, or to substitute bread crumbs for the parmesan cheese. Just FYI leaving out the bread crumbs makes these low carb meatballs.

Cooking Instructions

1.Mix the meat, parmesean cheese, spices and egg thoroughly.

2.Pour 1 jar of sauce in bottom of slow cooker.

3.Form balls–about the size of a ping pong ball–and gently place in slow cooker.

4.Top with the second jar of spaghetti sauce.

5.Cook on low for 7 to 8 hours. I like to check it and give it a stir about 5 hours in.

Prep Time: 20 minutes of prep, 7 to 8 hours of actual cooking. Oh, plus 20 minutes for pasta.

Serves: Depends on how you divvy up the meatballs. I usually get 12 meatballs from this recipe. 3 meatballs a piece would serve 4. 2 meatballs a piece would serve 6.

Leftovers: I usually have extra sauce which can easily be used to top a pizza. Or you can saute some veggies in olive oil, onion and garlic and add the sauce to make a veggie marinara later in the week. If there are extra meatballs, think about a meatball sub with toasted garlic bread.

Total Cost: $5.80 (buying some things in bulk and shopping the sales really pushed the price point down.)

Tags: cheap meals, crockpot meatballs, low carb meatballs, meatballs, slow cooker meatballs, spaghetti and meatballs
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