Grape jelly meatballs made in a crockpot are a delicious super simple appetizer using only 4 ingredients. They take minutes to prepare and only 2 hours to cook. Perfect for your next party, football game, or friendsgiving celebration.
This is one of those recipes that have been around for a really long time. Google tells me since the 1960’s. My inspiration for making this recipe is the TV show Southern Charm. This season they had a friendsgiving celebration and everyone brought a covered dish to the party. Everyone made their dish at home (except for the deep fried turkey) and brought it over and maybe had to heat it up, except for Kathryn. She came to the party and dumped 2 pounds of ground beef on the table and a bottle of chili sauce, ketchup, and a jar of grape jelly and proceeded to make the dish right then and there. I thought it was kind of funny. It didn’t show anything in detail but it seemed as though she took some ground beef and rolled it into meatballs without adding anything to them like eggs, or breadcrumbs etc. Then it showed her baking them in the oven and then throwing them in a pot on the stove and mixing them with the chili sauce, ketchup, and jelly. On the reunion show they even talked about the grape jelly meatballs and Shep said he thought they were really good.
So I decided to give it a try. I made these grape jelly meatballs for Jackson’s birthday and they were a hit. I accidently bought the large size frozen meatballs but it still only took 2 hours in a crockpot
I made them again using smaller frozen turkey meatballs.
I thought about trying Kathryn’s method and just using ground beef and making my own meatballs but I wanted the convenience of frozen meatballs and a crockpot. So super simple and easy and quite tasty too!
Grape jelly meatballs
1 26 oz bag frozen meatballs- do not thaw
1 cup chili sauce
1 1/2 cups grape jelly
1/2 cup ketchup
Combine chili sauce, grape jelly, and ketchup in a bowl and mix well. Place frozen meatballs in a crockpot and pour mixture over meatballs. Cover and cook on high 2 hours stirring occasionally.
Enjoy!