TODAY Food Club

Bacon & BBQ sauce are the special additions to these meatballs

Cowboy Meatballs

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1 pound breakfast sausage
• 1 pound bacon, finely diced
• 1 sleeve saltine crackers, finely crushed
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup BBQ sauce (used: Sweet Baby Ray's)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (for stovetop method)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, sausage, bacon, crushed saltines, milk, bbq sauce, salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes and eggs. Mix together well with your hands.
3. Scoop out 1-tablespoon portions of meat mixture and roll them into balls with your hands.
4. Place the meatballs onto parchment-lined baking sheets and put the baking sheets in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes for the meatballs to firm up.
5. In a medium bowl, whisk together sauce ingredients until well blended.
6. Cover and heat on high in microwave for 2 minutes. Remove and whisk. Continue heating until mixture is warm.
7. Pour over meatballs in slow cooker.
8. Set slow cooker to low and cook for 1-2 hours gently stirring occasionally.
9. Switch cooker off or to “keep warm” setting.
10. Serve warm as an appetizer or as a main dish with steamed rice.

Recipe Tags

• Slow cooker
• American
• Appetizer
• Entree