I almost don’t feel right sharing this recipe. You probably know it already; everyone and their dog knows (and loves) this classic recipe for slow cooker meatballs simmered with chili sauce and grape jelly. I’m certain you’ve had these at a party, served right out of a slow cooker or on a heated tray, speared on toothpicks and dripping with their sweet, tangy, peppery sauce.
My family has been serving these meatballs at holiday parties for as long as I can remember. And, as long as I can remember, they have consistently been the first items to vanish from the snack table.
I guess my main motivation for sharing this recipe is the thought that there may be some of you out there in the great wide internet that have never had these meatballs. Or, perhaps more likely, there are a handful of you out there who had one of these tasty morsels at a party once and forgot to ask for the recipe. If you are one of those people, you are in luck!
However, even if you have had these meatballs before, you should try mine because I adapted the recipe slightly by adding a healthy swig of bourbon, and it totally works.
I do generally try to stay away from store-bought ingredients, but this is one of those times where I break my own rule. Maybe someday in the future I will be extremely ambitious and try to make this sauce from scratch, but there is something magical that happens when the store-bought chili sauce meets the grape jelly.
The addition of hot sauce is optional, but undeniably tasty. The amount I’ve called for doesn’t make the meatballs overly spicy. If you love spicy things, you can add more to suit your taste. The addition of bourbon is also optional – it was a total random experiment that luckily ended up blending beautifully with the rest of the flavours.
Sweet, tangy, peppery, boozy, spicy. Perfect. The perfect party snack food.
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