These Slow Cooker Italian Meatballs are one of my favorite go-to recipes for basically anything. They taste great on their own as an appetizer, but also work well with pasta or on sub sandwiches with melty cheese. They’re freezer-friendly, too — meaning you can make a double-batch now and save some for later.
I realllllly wanted to title this post “slow cooker Italian meat-a-balls” because that’s how I always say it in my head. But we’re trying to keep it profesh around here, so the traditional spelling wins out (though you’ll totally say “meat-a-balls” in your head now, too. You’re welcome).
This is one of the recipes I made pre-baby for our freezer stash, and I made a royal mistake with them — I froze all eleventy billion (or, like, 40) of them in one container. Do you know where I’m going with this? It means I had to thaw all 40 meatballs for me, my husband and my mom (who was staying with us at the time) at once. I was shaking in my boots that some of these delicious meat-a-balls would end up going to waste.
How to Make Slow Cooker Italian Meatballs
Well it turns out I completely underestimated my husband’s love for the meatball, because they were all gone — GONE — in two days. Down the hatch in meatball sub form, on top of pasta, cold and sliced and placed atop whole-grain toast (YUM, really), etc. OK, OK — my mom and I helped, too.
Needless to say, this recipe is one of those low-effort, high-result recipes that you’re going to want to make again and again (just maybe freeze them in batches if you do, unless you love eating meatballs for two days straight like my husband).
The slow cooker is my friend in so many ways, and if you have one, you probably agree. It’s so helpful for those hustle-bustle days when dinner is the last thing you want to/have time to make. It also comes in handy when it’s 100 degrees outside and you want to avoid that oven at all costs (except maybe to bake chocolate chip cookies. No amount of heat will keep me from my cookies). And I love using it to make big ol’ batches of easy-peasy foods like these here meatballs, which I intended to use for at least three to four separate meals over the course of, like, a month (see above how that did not go as planned, but all is well).
Making meatballs in the slow cooker is especially delicious because I feel like slow-cooked meat and tomatoes are some of the best things to exist in life. But with a slow cooker, you have to do very little prep work. So the end result is something that tastes like you slaved over it for hours and hours when in reality, you spent about 15 minutes making it happen. WINNER.
How to Serve Slow Cooker Italian Meatballs
Like I mentioned before, we enjoyed these meatballs as cheesy meatball subs, on top of spaghetti with classic Italian bread, cold for lunch on toasted, crusty, whole wheat sourdough bread and just by themselves with a big Italian salad on the side. Finish that easy Italian-themed dinner with panna cotta, one bowl olive oil cake, or moist blueberry ricotta cake.
Slow Cooker Italian Meatballs
Ingredients
- ½ cup milk
- 4 eggs
- 2 pounds ground beef
- 12 ounces mild Italian sausage, bulk, or casings removed
- 1 ¼ cups Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- 6 cups marinara pasta sauce , 2, 24 ounce jars or homemade marinara pasta sauce
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together milk and eggs until combined. Add ground beef, Italian sausage, breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and garlic powder; stir with a wooden spoon or mix with your fingers until well combined.
- Heat broiler to high; place an oven rack about 4 to 5 inches from the broiler. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets with cooking spray or oil. Using your hands, shape (about 40) 1 to 2-inch meatballs from the mixture; place on prepared baking sheets.
- Broil meatballs 6 to 8 minutes, flipping halfway through, until browned. Transfer to a 6-quart slow cooker.
- Top meatballs evenly with sauce. Cover and cook on low 4 to 5 hours in the slow cooker until meatballs are cooked through to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees F.
- Serve on top of pasta, on split hoagie rolls with melty cheese for meatball sub sandwiches, alongside buttery mashed potatoes or on their own as an appetizer.
- TO FREEZE: Let meatballs and sauce cool completely. Place in a resealable plastic bag and freeze in a single layer; or, freeze in a Tupperware container. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then heat the thawed mixture (meatballs and sauce) together until heated through.
Notes
- This recipe makes a lot of meatballs, so if you don’t plan to freeze any I’d suggest halving the recipe.
- Adapted from Taste of Home
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate & comment below!
Yum! My boys would demolish the entire batch. They look so good!
I love recipes like this where they make a huge quantity and I can freeze them for when I don’t have time or just don’t want to cook. I love that these meatballs are cooked in the crockpot, I can just imagine how delicious they would be a on a sub!
Amanda — Umm, freezer meal club? I must know more.
Lindsey — I froze them after the whole shebang, so they went into a container in the freezer with the sauce. Just be sure to freeze them in batches if you make the whole recipe, unless you want to eat 40 meatballs at once like we did! 😉
Thanks! I will definitely freeze them in more manageable portions. I have also been known to chisel sections out of containers, because I have definitely had a freezer portioning mishap or two!
I am going to have to agree with your husband on this one! I could eat meatballs for days on end! This recipe looks super easy. Just a quick question…at what point did you freeze them? Did you freeze them after baking them and then cooked in slow cooker or did you go all the way through the recipe and then freeze with the sauce?
And, yes, thank you because now all I hear is “meat-a-balls” in my head. Make it stop!!!
I have been hunting for a great recipe for my freezer meal club and lo and behold, here are these meatballs! Problem solved. They sound divine!
Sounds like such a great thing to have in the freezer — and so versatile too!
I really need to use my slow cooker more in the summer! These meatballs look great!
Love slow cooker meatballs! So smart of you to freeze them pre baby! I will have to give these a try !! 🙂
I can’t wait to make these, they look amazing and love that you used the slow cooker!