Grape Jelly Meatballs Recipe - The Cookie Rookie® (HOW TO VIDEO) (2024)

FAQs

Why are my grape jelly meatballs runny? ›

To thicken runny grape jelly meatball sauce, mix up a teaspoon of cornstarch (or even two depending on how thick you want things) with an equal amount of water. Stir this into the bubbling meatball mixture during the last hour they're in the slow cooker.

It's difficult to determine who was the first to create a recipe for grape jelly meatballs, much less document it. In the 1960s, recipes for “co*cktail meatballs” appeared in myriad texts, some of which were for a cream-based sauce (similar to Swedish meatballs), others made with ketchup and brown sugar.

Replace the Grape Jelly with apricot preserves, orange marmalade, canned cranberry sauce, raspberry preserves, or hot pepper jelly. Replace the Ketchup with Heinz chili sauce or barbecue sauce. If swapping the ketchup for chili sauce, it is not a spicy sauce.

Egg: Adds more moisture and helps the mixture firm up once cooked. Parmesan: My secret ingredient for the best meatballs! Parmigiano-Reggiano adds flavor and salt to our mixture.

Egg acts as a binder for the ingredients, but you only need a small amount. One small egg will do for one pound of minced meat. Alternatively, if you're following an egg-free diet, you could soak fresh bread in milk, squeezing out any excess milk, to use as a binder.

Because meat shrinks when cooked, mince proteins are likely to separate and crumble unless bound together. Whether it's breadcrumbs or egg (or both), or simply salt, binding the mince is a crucial step in maintaining the softness of your meatballs while preventing them from falling apart.

Why do people call them baby shower meatballs ?- Traditionally they are a staple dish served at baby showers.

- Crystals can form as a result of excess sugar, undissolved sugar during cooking, or over or under cooking. Another source of crystals in grape jelly is tartrate crystals. Jelly that crystallizes in the refrigerator can be another problem.

Pork isn't used directly to make jelly-based foods. Gelatin, a product made from the bones and skin of porcine and bovine products, is used, probably because it's cheap and there is a lot of it.

Welch's Jelly is made from fruit juice and Welch's Jam is made from pureed fruit. So to put it simply, though we use the same ingredients, the texture of both products will be different.

Is Concord grape jelly the same as regular grape jelly? ›

Welch's Natural Concord Grape Spread

And unlike most grape jelly, it isn't made with high fructose corn syrup. It's just concord grapes, sugar, lemon juice concentrate, and fruit pectin. Don't be turned off by the fact that it's a “spread” rather than a jelly—it's the consistency of jelly, I promise.

Milk: We will mix a bit of milk with the breadcrumbs to form a panade, which will help to keep our meatballs nice and moist. Ground beef and pork: I like to use a 50/50 mix of the two to make meatballs, but you can also make all-beef or all-pork meatballs if you prefer.

The Key to Tender Meatballs

Here, we're soaking fresh or dried breadcrumbs in a little milk until the bread becomes soggy, then mixing that right into the meat. This binder (aka panade) helps add moisture to the meatballs and also prevents the meat proteins from shrinking and becoming tough.

Cook's Illustrated explains that adding too many eggs will put your meatballs at risk of having a soggy texture. Any additional and unnecessary liquid will also cause difficulty mixing and forming meatballs. Adding a single egg should be enough to do the trick, with two being the maximum for each pound of meat you use.

More Reasons Your Meatballs are Hard

Sticky hands can result in an overworked farcemeat. Too much time spent forming the balls can also make them tough, and you're more likely to overwork them if you can't get them off your hands.

Regardless of the type of jam or jelly you have on hand, it's important to know the signs of spoilage. According to Lee, this may include yeasty off-odors, fermented alcohol-like flavors, and mold growth, which may appear as white fuzzy patches inside the jar or on the product itself.