Slow-Cooked Meatballs with Cabbage and Tomatoes
This turned out to be pretty delicious! The recipe called for more cabbage than would really fit into my 3.5 quart slow cooker, but I shoved as much as possible in there, then weighted down the top until it had reduced a bit. I used chorizo, but you could use hot italian sausage too, I’m sure. I also made my meatballs about 3” in diameter, which in retrospect was a little bit too large. Next time I’ll take them down to 2”.
Note that I also made the meatballs well in advance and froze them until I was ready to cook this — then threw them straight in frozen. It still turned out great — after 6 hours they were piping hot and cooked through.
Ingredients
- 1 medium head of cabbage (large if you have a big crockpot!)
- 1 pound of ground beef
- ½ pound of chorizo, casing removed
- ½ cup minced onion
- 1 tsp caraway seeds
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 16 oz can tomatoes – including the juice
- 3 tbsp vinegar
- 1 carrot – unpeeled, ends chopped off
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Chop the cabbage into large chunks, break apart with your fingers, and put about half of it in the bottom of the crock pot with the carrot. If you have a little crock pot, you will need to make sure you’re leaving enough space for meatballs!
Mix together the ground beef, sausage, onion, spices, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Roll the mixture tightly into small meatballs (about 2 inches in diameter.) Give ‘em a good squeeze so they don’t break apart when you cook them! Throw the meatballs in the crock pot on top of the cabbage, and cover with remaining cabbage.
Combine tomatoes and vinegar in a food processor or blender and pulse a few times to that the tomatoes are broken down but not pureed. Pour mixture over cabbage.
Cook 6-8 hours on low. Remove carrot before serving.
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