Crockpot meatballs are fantastic for holiday and game day parties. The sweet and slightly spicy blackberry chili sauce adds a ton of flavor to these light meatballs!
Crockpot Meatballs Recipe with Blackberry Chili Sauce
Whether you're planning for a cocktail party or a game day get-together with friends, these crockpot meatballs are the perfect addition to your menu! Made with ground turkey and chicken sausage, they are lighter than your average meatballs. But don't let the "light" part fool you because they are packed with flavor and glazed with a delectable sweet and subtly spicy blackberry chili sauce.
Ingredients for crockpot meatballs:
- The main base of these meatballs is made up of ground turkey and chicken sausage. For the ground turkey, I opted for lean (94%) rather than extra lean because I find that the flavor is better and the little bit of extra fat adds more moisture.
- Be sure to buy RAW chicken sausages, not the precooked variety. It would be rather challenging to mix cooked sausage into a meatball mixture. 🙂 Squeeze the sausages out of their casings, into the bowl with the ground turkey.
- In all of my meatball recipes, I always grate, not chop or dice, the onion before stirring it with the meat. My family isn't a fan of chunks of onions in their meatballs, but I'm not willing to give up the flavor that the onion adds. Grating it solves the problem!
- The rest of the meatball ingredients are pretty standard: Garlic, egg, herbs, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Feel free to change up the herbs and spices in any meatball recipe to add your own spin.
- I opt for whole wheat panko breadcrumbs (affiliate) or homemade whole wheat breadcrumbs for an extra boost of fiber. Of course, regular breadcrumbs can be used as well. You may find that you need to slightly alter the amount of breadcrumbs you use for the meatballs to stick together well. I find that this tends to vary depending on the humidity where you live.
How to make meatballs in the crockpot:
- There are two schools of thought on making slow cooker meatballs: To bake or not to bake.
- Can you put the raw meatballs in the crockpot with a sauce and cook them without ever turning on the oven? Of course! In fact, you'll find plenty of recipes out there that involve crockpot cooking only. But let me tell you why I prefer to bake them for several minutes.
- First, I find that the meatballs hold their shape much better if baked in the oven first. Whenever I've tried to stir raw meatballs with a sauce in the slow cooker, inevitably there are a couple of casualties.
- Second, baking the meatballs allows them to brown slightly. And you know what browning leads to...more flavor! I will never turn down the opportunity to add extra flavor or texture to a dish.
How to serve these slow cooker turkey meatballs:
- If you're serving these meatballs at a game day or cocktail party, serve them with toothpicks or appetizer skewers, like the ones you see (affiliate) in my photos. You could either arrange the meatballs on a platter or allow your guest to skewer on their own directly from the crockpot.
- If the meatballs are destined to be an entrée, serve them over rice, quinoa or cauliflower rice.
- Put a twist on Taco Tuesday and tuck the meatballs inside of corn tortillas, along with an Asian-inspired slaw, like this one or this one.
Other healthy meatball recipes:
Italian Turkey Meatball Recipe in Tomato Sauce {Cookin' Canuck}
Baked Salmon Meatballs with Creamy Avocado Sauce {Cookin' Canuck}
Thai Chicken Meatballs with Dipping Sauce {Boulder Locavore}
Spicy Vegan Meatballs in the Slow Cooker {Delish Knowledge}
Crockpot Meatballs with Blackberry Chili Sauce
Crockpot meatballs are fantastic for holiday and game day parties. The sweet and slightly spicy blackberry chili sauce adds a ton of flavor to these light meatballs!
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Servings: 36 Meatballs
Calories: 115kcal
Ingredients
The Meatballs:
- 1 pound lean 94% ground turkey
- 12 ounces raw Italian chicken sausage removed from casings
- ½ medium onion grated
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 egg
- 1 egg white
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons whole wheat panko breadcrumbs* or more, if needed
- ¼ cup minced flat-leaf parsley
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon ground pepper
The Sauce:
- ½ cup blackberry or marionberry preserves
- ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons chicken broth divided
- 3 teaspoons rice vinegar
- 2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce
- 2 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 ½ teaspoons cornstarch
Instructions
The Meatballs:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, combine the ground turkey, chicken sausage, onion, garlic, egg, egg white, breadcrumbs, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
- Using a rounded tablespoon for each portion, shape the mixture into meatballs and arrange on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until just cooked through, about 15 minutes.
- Place the meatballs in a slow cooker/crockpot and pour the sauce over top. Gently stir to coat the meatballs.
- Set the crockpot to HIGH heat and cook until the sauce has thickened, about 1 ½ hours. Serve with toothpicks, drizzling the extra sauce over top.
The Sauce:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the blackberry preserves, ¼ cup chicken broth, rice vinegar and chili garlic sauce.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 tablespoon chicken broth, soy sauce and cornstarch. Whisk this mixture into the blackberry preserves mixture.
Notes
Weight Watchers Points: 3 (Freestyle SmartPoints), 3 (Points+)
Nutrition
Serving: 2Meatballs | Calories: 115kcal | Carbohydrates: 9.1g | Protein: 9.6g | Fat: 4.5g | Saturated Fat: 1.5g | Cholesterol: 40.5mg | Sodium: 349.5mg | Fiber: 0.4g | Sugar: 6.1g
Tried this recipe?If you make this recipe, I'd love to see it on Instagram! Just use the hashtag #COOKINCANUCK and I'll be sure to find it.
Disclosure: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
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