Porcupine Balls (beef and rice meatballs) Slow Cooker style

Porcupine Balls are meatballs made mostly of beef and rice cooked in a tomato sauce. This particular recipe uses hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce which really adds a lot of great flavor!

I used a combinations of recipes for this one but relied heavily on a recipe posted on one of my favorite recipe blogs, Suburban Bliss. I'll include the link at the bottom.

Suburban Bliss made her's stove top and with two cuts of beef. It's 95F outside and I'm trying to keep my apartment cool so I tried it out in the slow cooker. It worked very well!

Following is the recipe as I tweaked it:



Meatballs:
- 1.5 lbs ground beef (use a leaner beef for less oily meatballs)
- 3/4cups uncooked rice
- 1/3cup tomato sauce (open a 14oz can and reserve the rest for later)
- a small onion finely diced (I wish I had spent the time to dice mine finer)
- 1 tablespoon dry parsley flakes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

You'll also need:
- 1 can of condensed tomato soup
- ketchup
- 1-2 TBSP hot sauce
- 2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce



Mix these together and make meatballs aprox 2inches in diameter and drop them in the bottom of the slow cooker. I have a pretty big oblong one and this made about 1.5 layers. I put a bit of tomato soup on the first layer to prevent the balls from sticking to one another.

After the meatballs are in the pot top with about 1.5tsp tomato sauce and then a dab of ketchup.

In a bowl mix: remaining tomato sauce, remaining tomato soup, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. Pour over meatballs. Add 1/2 cup water.

Cook on low 6-8 hrs or on high 4-5 hrs until meatballs are cooked through and rice is tender.

I served with green beans warmed on the stove with a bit of olive oil and some Parmesan herb seasoning. A simple salad would be nice too.

http://www.suburbanbliss.net/suburbanbliss/2009/12/did-they-eat-it-porcupine-meatballs.html