Slow Cooker Porcupine Meatballs in Tangy Sauce


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Meatballs with rice in a sweet and tangy sauce, these Slow Cooker Porcupine Meatballs are a blast from the past!

close up of porcupine meatballs
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Today I am sharing my recipe for Slow Cooker Porcupine Meatballs. The Porcupine part of the recipe is the rice in the meatballs.

No porcupine meat, I promise! Below is a vintage recipe I found on Pinterest. I jazzed up this recipe with a tangy and sweet sauce. You can see my recipe farther down past the photos.

vintage recipe of porcupine meatballs.

I start with a basic meatball recipe. I don’t add the Minute rice until after I mix these ingredients together first.

ground beef, bread crumbs, barbecue sauce, eggs and onion in a bowl.

The Sauce is a mixture of ketchup, brown sugar and apple cider vinegar, very simple but packs so much flavor. I formed the meat mixture into 20 meatballs. I layered the meatballs and sauce into my slow cooker.

raw meatballs one a plate. Barbecue sauce mixture in a bowl.

Here is what the porcupine meatballs and sauce look like after being cooked on low for 5 hours.

porcupine meatballs in a slow cooker.

The sauce is AMAZING, sweet and lots of tang from the cider vinegar.

porcupine meatballs on a plate served with a bowl of green beans

Try these other great meatball recipes too!

small video of fork slicing into a meatball

I do have to say these vintage recipeshave been my favorite to do on the blog, never feels like a chore to me. I hope you are enjoying them too! Have a great weekend.

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close up of porcupine meatballs

Slow Cooker Porcupine Meatballs in a Tangy Sauce

5 from 4 votes
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 5 hours
Total Time: 5 hours 20 minutes
Servings: 6
Homemade meatballs with rice that makes them into "porcupine" meatballs.

Ingredients 
 

Meatballs!

  • 1 1/2 lbs ground beef, I use 10% fat beef
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup diced onions
  • 1/3 cup barbecue sauce
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 cup crushed crackers, I use Ritz
  • 1 cup Minute Brand rice, don’t use standard rice

Sauce

  • 2 cups ketchup, I use Hunts
  • 1/2 cup Sweet Baby Rays Barbecue Sauce
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Instructions 

  • In a large bowl add the meatball ingredients, except the rice. With clean hands mix these ingredients together, add rice and mix in evenly. Form the balls, I made them about the size of 2 tablespoons, I made a total of 20 meatballs.
  • Mix the sauce ingredients in a small bowl until combined.
  • Spray the slow cooker with non-stick spray. Add a layer of meatballs and drizzle over some sauce. Do this a few times, until all the meatballs and sauce are gone.
  • Cover and cook on LOW for 5 hours without opening the lid during the cooking time.

Nutrition

Calories: 628kcal | Carbohydrates: 89g | Protein: 29g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 129mg | Sodium: 1524mg | Potassium: 852mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 51g | Vitamin A: 595IU | Vitamin C: 5mg | Calcium: 105mg | Iron: 4mg

Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.

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36 Comments

  1. Min says:

    I want to make these for a crowd, would it work to double everything?

    1. Sarah Olson says:

      Yes, doubling will work fine.