Slow Cooker Porcupine Meatballs in Tangy Sauce
36 Comments Oct 14, 2016
Updated Mar 19, 2025
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Meatballs with rice in a sweet and tangy sauce, these Slow Cooker Porcupine Meatballs are a blast from the past!
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.
I start with a basic meatball recipe. I don’t add the Minute rice until after I mix these ingredients together first.
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.
Here is what the porcupine meatballs and sauce look like after being cooked on low for 5 hours.
The sauce is AMAZING, sweet and lots of tang from the cider vinegar.
Try these other great meatball recipes too!
Saucy and cheesy, Slow Cooker Meatball Subs are a hearty, crowd-pleasing meal made with tender meatballs slow-cooked to perfection.
Slow Cooker Barbecue Meatballs and Baby Shower Meatballs both bring bold, sweet, and savory flavors, making them perfect for parties or weeknight dinners.
For a tangy twist, Slow Cooker Sweet and Sour Meatballs and Grape Jelly Meatballs offer a balance of sweetness and zest, ideal for appetizers or over rice.
Rich and comforting, Slow Cooker Swedish Meatballs are coated in a creamy, savory sauce that pairs perfectly with noodles or mashed potatoes.
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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Slow Cooker Porcupine Meatballs in a Tangy Sauce
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
Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.
In my family we made close to the original porcupine meatball recipe..We just used the spices we liked to our own tastes..We then took frozen well thawed baby brussel sprouts and formed the meat and rice mixture around it to make a ball..We browned the meatballs in olive oil in a skillet and then added the tomato sauce and simmered them until the brussel sprout in the middle was done..We called them inside out mini cabbage rolls..
This recipe is 100% certified badass
I think I had Porcupine Meatballs to eat at a friend’s house when I was a kid and wanted them at home so made my mom make them or we made them together? Would have been from the era of the Hunts ad… guessing that is 1960s. I know we used regular rice not Minute Rice though your recipe sounds a lot more flavorful than the Hunts Tomato Sauce version.
With that mixture you could make stuffed
Peppers.
Yes, that would work great.
So I’m coming over from Stacey’s blog. Yesterday I made stuffed cabbage and have way too much meat mixture left and it’s got rice in it. TaDa here’s this recipe that I’ll have tomorrow night. My mixture was pretty plain so with just some additions it’ll be in the crock pot in the morning. So thanks for the idea.
Great idea!
these were delicious! I added a bit of water to the sauce after cooking. Next time I will add the water before I cook them. My crock pot runs a little hot and they scorched a bit. Instead of the Ketchup I added a can of tomato sauce (plus one oz of ketchup)
Sara, I use frozen Italian meatballs, sweet baby rays barbeque sauce and can of good whole
cranberry sauce
Terry, G.
My mother use to add diced potatoes & Peas half way thru, fantastic with your recipe … & bread ,& butter for dunking..
Thanks
That is not porcupine meatballs
????
These porcupine meatballs are delish! Just like my mom used to make. The sauce is tangy but sweet, might be nice to use this sauce on ribs or wings.
Have you made these with ground chicken?
can I make the meatballs and then freeze until ready to cook
I think that would work fine.
I would probably cook before freezing. Then all you have to do is add them to your sauce while cooking.